The Astrology Podcast

Transcript of Episode 534, titled:

May Astrology Forecast 2026

With Chris Brennan and Austin Coppock

Episode originally released on May 1, 2026

Original episode URL:

https://theastrologypodcast.com/2026/05/01/may-astrology-forecast-2026/

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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com

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Transcribed by Teresa “Peri” Lardo

Transcription released May 4th, 2026

Copyright © 2026 TheAstrologyPodcast.com

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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hey. My name is Chris Brennan, and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. Joining me today is astrologer Austin Coppock, and we’re gonna be talking about the astrological forecast for May of 2026. Hey Austin, good to see you again. 

AUSTIN COPPOCK: Yeah, it’s nice to be back. 

CB: We’re back again. It’s been a month since our last forecast episode, and we’re gonna spend the first hour of this episode talking about major news and events that happened since our last forecast and the astrology behind those news stories. Then in the second hour we’re gonna jump into doing a deep dive into the astrology of May. So as always, there’ll be timestamps if you wanna jump ahead straight to the forecast episode and skip the news, but otherwise, before we get into the news section, I wanted to give just a quick overview of the astrology of May to give you a preview of what’s coming up later in this episode. 

All right, so here is the – for those watching the video version – the planetary alignments calendar that shows all the major astrological aspects this month. But I’m actually just gonna mention some of the highlights this month and try to give some keywords to do things a little bit differently this time. 

So the month opens with what I would describe as a peace-shattering Mars-Jupiter square around May 4th, and then around the same time, there’s a very intense Pluto station on May 6th and the dates surrounding it which highlights themes of power and control, but will also mark an important turning point with respect to ongoing technological and social transformations that have been developing over the past few years. 

Speaking of technological transformations, in the middle of the month a newly ingressed Uranus into Gemini will make its first conjunctions with Mercury and the Sun in Gemini, which will initiate and accelerate new technological advancements in communications and transportation, while also promising some unexpected disruptions this month. The middle of the month also features some mildly pleasant sextiles between the Sun and Jupiter and Mercury and Jupiter on May 10th and 12th respectively, as well as a sensual Venus-Mars sextile around may 18th. Later in the month, things become more tense with a destructive Mars-Pluto square around May 26th. But fortunately, by the very end of the month, we close out May with one of the most positive and auspicious alignments of the year starting to form in the sky as Venus and Jupiter form a conjunction in the sign of Cancer that will eventually culminate in early June. 

So those are some of the main highlights. You think those are the main highlights? We’ve got basically those two rough Mars aspects at the beginning, and towards the end of the month, but then we got some sextiles in the middle and we got that nice Venus-Jupiter forming by the end, yeah? 

AC: Yeah. I agree with all that. I would say it’s also important to note that on the 18th, Mars’s ingress into Taurus is Mars leaving Aries and therefore leaving the rough copresence with Saturn which began on the 9th of April and is a very unpleasant configuration. And so part of what I like about May is that some of the difficulties which have been present go away. Right? And the negation of a negative is absolutely a positive. 

CB: Yeah, brilliant point that the lack of or disappearing of a tense aspect that has ground things to a halt I know for a lot of people will be really good to look forward to. So — 

AC: Yeah.

CB: We’ll get more into that more later in this episode in the second hour. But for now, why don’t we make a transition to talking about the news and events since our last forecast episode?

AC: Let’s do it! 

CB: All right, so the first section, of course, the main thing that happened this month was surrounding the Iran war where there was escalation, a blockade, an uncomfortable peace, as well as an oil shock that is finally starting to hit and starting to impact things. So in April, there was this rare quadruple conjunction of Mercury, Mars, and Neptune and Saturn, and we expected themes of escalation as well as grounding to a halt. The keyword we’ve used for years for Mars-Saturn conjunctions is like, hitting the gas and the brakes in a car at the same time and the internal feeling of tensions, but also of everything coming to a stop around that time. And what was interesting is at the beginning of the month when Mars started to move into the orb of the conjunction with Neptune and Saturn, things did escalate. And on April 7th, Trump in a tweet threatened to wipe out the entire Iranian civilization, saying, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” And this obviously, like, freaked out everybody, because it’s literally the one person in the world that has access to the nuclear weapons and stuff that could do something like that that was threatening to do it. And it was just absolutely unprecedented and an unprecedented escalation of this war and everything that’s been happening right as Mars and Saturn and Neptune were moving into that conjunction. 

Were you — 

AC: Yeah. 

CB: — tracking that, Austin? 

AC: It was hard not to. But yeah, it would be harder to find a better example of inflammatory rhetoric, which would be a massive understatement. Like — 

CB: Yeah. 

AC: — I think that speaks for itself, especially with the Mars-Saturn conjunction being so close. And with Mercury there – Mercury, of course, offering a bullhorn or conveying the message of the planets which it’s near. 

CB: Yeah. I definitely think threatening a genocide is a little beyond inflammatory rhetoric, but — 

AC: Indeed. 

CB: Yeah, it’s getting there. So that was actually probably one of the most tense things that happened this month as that conjunction was coming together, but then immediately after that, a bunch of – everyone freaked out and ran to try to find a way to get – to stop this, and he ended up backing off and then a fragile two-week peace deal was brokered which was set to expire two weeks later, which was around the Mars-Saturn conjunction which went exact on April 19th. 

So immediately after that, Vice President Vance was sent to direct peace talks with Iran on April 11th, which interestingly happened right on the Venus-Jupiter sextile that was going exact around the 11th and 12th. And I thought that was an interesting example of a sextile, because it went from like, him threatening to wipe out a civilization to suddenly we’re doing peace talks, and the peace talks went nowhere with both sides taking maximalist approaches. But nonetheless, it was like, a lightly positive peaceful time after what could have been an extremely destructive one. So it gave me a little bit of nice reflection on what a sextile is like, which is like a lightly or moderately positive aspect. 

AC: Yeah, I was very impressed. I was looking at my phone saying, “Go, benefics, go!” You know? Because that was – you know, we have both Venus and Jupiter connected via sextile there, both of which prefer peace and advocate for peace, and both of them in places where they’re individually strong. And then with that alliance via sextile, I was impressed by the fact that things were – that there were even – that peace talks were even being attempted, especially given how brutal and destructive Mars-Saturn conjunctions can be and the fact of what was being said even a few days before. It really showed the power of the benefics to offset even a brutal conjunction. It was — 

CB: Yeah. 

AC: — they did better than I thought they would do, and I’m happy for it. 

CB: Yeah, for sure. So after the peace talks didn’t go anywhere, a couple days later on April 13th, Trump imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports. And this is right as the Mars-Saturn conjunction is coming up to, and that ended up being one of the primary things of the Mars-Saturn-Neptune conjunction was this blockade going into effect where basically there’s a dual blockade, because the Iranians were already blockading ships from leaving the Strait of Hormuz, and now Trump and the US are blocking ships from going in or out of the Strait of Hormuz. And what was – this eventually culminated actually on April 19th, the very day of the Mars-Saturn conjunction, when the US actually fired on an Iranian ship and disabled it and then boarded it. And around the same time on April 22nd, just after the Mars-Saturn, a report came out from the US saying that it would take six months to clear the mines that Iran had laid in the Strait of Hormuz, which then by implication meant that the oil shortages and some of the naval issues in the area were gonna last for much longer than people were expecting or than people were hoping, I should say. And one of the things that was fascinating about that is I started looking through the history of previous blockades once I was seeing that there’s a blockade happening under this conjunction, and I actually found that the longest naval blockade in modern history happened in the early 1950s on a Saturn-Neptune conjunction during the Korean War; it’s called the blockade of Wonsan, and the US navy and UN forces maintained a blockade that lasted for 861 days all the way from 1951 to 1953 that coincided with that conjunction in Libra. And then even further back, one of the other largest naval blockades in history happened during the Napoleonic wars between France and Britain, and that actually centered around the Saturn-Neptune conjunction that happened in 1810. So I was fascinated to see that there was like, precedent in this conjunction and some of the previous ones for things like this. 

AC: Yeah. That’s interesting and it also makes immediate astro sense, in that we have Neptune referring to sometimes quite literally the waters, and then Saturn which blocks, obstructs, or slows down. So we have like, a slowing down of passage through waters. I also thought that the dual blockade, the double blockade, spoke to the Mars-Saturn conjunction very clearly, because with Mars-Saturn, you know, we literally talk about – we’ve used the gas and brakes at the same time, which means going nowhere or going very slowly. It’s also common to speak of a Mars-Saturn conjunction, especially if you end up between the two, as between a rock and a hard place. Right? So we literally have like, two – for any prospective captains, right, for any vessels, you have literally two military forces which might destroy you. And the result of which, of course, is an almost complete lack of movement. 

It was also interesting to me – I was reflecting on how in a lot of traditional astrology, a planet that is between Mars and Saturn is considered to be “besieged,” right? Like a castle would be besieged where you’re – nothing gets in or nothing gets out. And I had a sort of oh, like, a duh moment when I realized that a blockade is just a naval siege. Right? It’s not a castle, so you gotta use different tactics, but blockades are sieges. And so to have all that hit – and Mercury during this time hits a perfect moment of being perfectly besieged in that small space in between Saturn and Mars, and I thought that spoke to this incredibly economically destructive blockade besiegement as perfectly as possible. Like, of course that’s the astrology for it. 

CB: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense with the blockade and the enclosure and everything else and sometimes the astrological alignments happening very literally, even with Saturn and Neptune, as you were saying. But so the dual blockade has effectively choked off traffic in the strait, which normally handles something like 20 to 25 percent of global oil. And this has created a global oil supply shortage and an energy shock, which has become the largest physical oil supply disruption in history, and it’s also the most severe global energy shock since the 1970s. 

So one of the things that the Mars-Saturn conjunction coincided with perfectly was that the last tankers that got out of the Strait of Hormuz carrying oil from the Middle East before the war started in February arrived at their destinations around April 20th right on the Mars-Saturn conjunction. So what happened in April that’s just starting to be felt now is we made the transition from the initial shockwave of the event in February when the war started, to suddenly the economic impact and the reality of the fuel shortage is starting to settle in now in late April. And what’s happening is that oil shortages are already starting to hit other countries where there’s physical shortages, there’s rationing, and there’s also different governments are attempting to curb usage in order to make up for the oil shortfalls and just the lack of availability. And I think it’s kind of – not hilarious. Hilarious is not the word, but it’s interesting that we’ve used the phrase like, you know, “hitting the gas and the brakes,” and just what happens is things come to a halt any time we’ve talked about Mars-Saturn conjunctions over the past few years, and now that’s literally what’s happening around the world. And even here in the US where gas shortages are not happening because the US has become such an oil producer, the price of gas has been rising every day since the conjunction went exact around April 19th so that the people in the US and consumers are actually starting to feel it because the price of gas is a globally set average rather than something that is purely controlled by the US or what have you. 

AC: Yeah. In addition to that, yeah, so just to go back to gas and the brakes, we talk about how frustrating that is, and you end up trying really hard to barely move. But another part of that analogy that, as you said, is quite apt is that’s a good way to run out of gas while going nowhere. 

CB: Right. 

AC: And so I think it’s also worth adding that most reports indicate that we are just getting the very very very tip of the iceberg of the effects of the damage that has already been done. It is like the light from a distant star which will not reach us for months. And that in addition to a significant portion of the world’s petroleum flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, a huge chunk of fertilizer supplies goes through there, and that these shortages will inevitably impact agricultural yields for the entire next year. And you know, fertilizer makes food; food makes people run. It’s pretty important too. 

CB: Yeah, the price of like, wheat and other stuff is already starting to go up a lot. 

So one of the realizations I had this month – because we had talked in the last forecast episode about how I remembered, I always and never forget the Mars-Saturn conjunction that happened in Capricorn and Aquarius in March and April of 2020 and how everything ground to a halt due to the lockdowns during covid, but that was also the last time there were significant disruptions in oil and things like that. There was that time on that Mars-Saturn conjunction, and then there was actually another one two years later on the next Mars-Saturn conjunction since they happen every couple of years. And that was when Russia invaded Ukraine. And then all of a sudden, immediately after that, the US and a lot of countries put sanctions on Russia and on Russian oil and things like that that created similar disruptions in oil and energy. And eventually what I realized this month is I made some connections that I hadn’t made before about how the Saturn-Neptune cycle itself is tied in with the history of oil. And a year ago when Nick and I did the full, like, eight-hour Saturn-Neptune episode where we went through every conjunction over the past 2,000 years in history, we had picked up on a few that were tied in with oil. But I often didn’t make the connection that oil was actually a recurring theme. But I put this together this month and I did a little short video on it, but just to give you the summary of it, the big one is that in 1846, kerosene was invented by a Canadian inventor, and this was the first time that oil was kind of like, synthesized into something that could be used in lamps, and it began the modern use of oil literally on a Saturn-Neptune conjunction that was happening at that time. So basically we started modern reliance on oil started on the Saturn-Neptune conjunction around 1846. Then in 1882, John D. Rockefeller formed the Standard Oil and Trust, which is one of the first big oil conglomerates, basically, just like all the big oil conglomerates today. This was like, the first one. And Nick and I had actually pointed that one out, but we pointed it out because it was a secretive, behind-the-scenes thing where they were doing like, sketchy business things behind the scenes. But it was the oil was also part of what was important on that Saturn-Neptune conjunction. Then you jump forward to the next conjunction in 1917, and this is in the middle of World War I, and what happened is that the mechanization of World War I caused the first major global oil crisis at that time right on that Saturn-Neptune conjunction during World War I. 

Then you jump forward to the next conjunction, and then you’re at 1953-1954 when that Saturn-Neptune conjunction coincided with the US and Britain organizing a coup in Iran to overthrow the democratically elected leader and install the Shah, which Nick and I talked about and you and I have talked about extensively. Except the reason why that happened is because the Iranians were trying to nationalize their oil fields, so it was ultimately about oil on that conjunction, even though we focused on how it had to do with the overthrow of the leader of Iran and the US getting involved in Iranian politics.

So then you jump forward to the next Saturn-Neptune conjunction, and that was 1989, and that was when the Exxon Valdez disaster happened where this oil tanker crashed and caused this huge ecological disaster, which led to a lot of additional restrictions on oil but also changed the public perception of oil in some ways due to the clear ecological impact that it had. 

AC: And just for an additional Saturn-Neptune note, Neptune often denoting – describing – someone who is in a confused or intoxicated state, if I’m remembering correctly, the captain was drunk. 

CB: Okay. That’s a good point. 

AC: I have like, strong but not particularly clear 10-year-old memories of that being on TV and just like —

CB: Right. 

AC: — you know, birds coated in oil. It was a huge thing. 

CB: Yeah, I remember like, the sea otters coated in oil and people going and using like, bath soap to try to like, rinse them off and stuff like that. 

AC: Yeah, people at the beaches trying to help the wildlife. 

CB: Yeah. But anyway, so it means that one of the interesting things about the Saturn-Neptune conjunction, just to stand outside of ourselves and the havoc and the war and tragedy and everything that’s happening, is just now we can see that the Saturn-Neptune cycle is tied in in a very crucial way to the history of oil and humanity’s reliance on it. And that’s true in this conjunction now and may be one of the most important things that this is setting a foundation for over the next 36 years, because this will also have an impact with how we use oil over the next 36 years. But in subsequent conjunctions over the next century, I think we’ll continue to see important turning points when it comes to humanity’s interaction with oil and reliance on it or attempts to move off of oil in different ways and things like that. 

AC: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I have seen a number of articles recently about how the situation as it has already changed in regard to oil has changed the incentives around renewables, where they now have an additional appeal that they did not when the oil was sure to flow freely. 

CB: Right. Because now it’s like, a national security issue, whereas if people weren’t into renewables previously for environmental reasons, now there’s like, very tangible reasons why having that creates a national security issue in different ways or what have you. So yeah, good news hopefully – maybe that’ll push some ways additional development of renewable energy. I mean, unfortunately the other thing we’ve been talking about the past couple of years that I predicted at one point in a year ahead forecast a couple years ago that’s been coming true is also returning back to a period where nuclear energy is being emphasized, which has been additionally coming true with Uranus coming back to Gemini where the nuclear age started. But hopefully maybe some renewable stuff will also be emphasized as part of this new 36-year cycle that we’re laying the foundation for now. 

AC: Yeah. 

CB: All right, so in the year ahead forecast, we said that we saw that the Saturn-Neptune conjunction would happen in February and said that some major world-defining events would happen at that time. But then we said that we would return back to those in April when that conjunction of Saturn and Neptune was reactivated by Mars hitting it when those three planets conjoined in the sign of Aries. And so part of this ended up being the oil shock starting and the energy shock starting in February when the war began, but then fully hitting in April when last oil tankers reached their destinations around the world at that time. And I wanna note how notable that it – how that worked out in that instance, because I saw a bunch of other instances of that that we’ll talk about in the news section this month as well where something happened in February which then came back up again in a similar way in April once that Saturn-Neptune conjunction was reactivated by Mars.

AC: Yeah, that’s very clean astro math. 

CB: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so anyway, so the Mars-Saturn things grounding to a halt was largely the supply shock that’s happening worldwide. But then it was also this weirdly tense peace that obviously won’t last because both sides have conditions that are unacceptable to the other and currently haven’t budged very far in terms of what they’re asking. And it reminded me a little bit, though, this month, this conjunction of like, the Mars-Saturn conjunction during covid in March and April of 2020, because on the one hand, while some people – many people – were like, sick or dying – you know, like, I was super sick back then. There’s videos of me being really sick with covid in the first wave. But I was reminded that other people during that time were actually enjoying the sudden lack of movement, and were like, baking bread and playing board games and other stuff like that. And while that wasn’t my experience, it reminded me a little bit of that this month where sometimes things grounding to a halt can sometimes bring a lack of movement or in this instance was sort of peaceful because nothing was happening, even if it was an awkward silence because it happened right after a period of extreme conflict and like, fear about a destruction of a civilization and things like that. 

AC: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Sometimes a lack of motion is a positive thing, right? If the car that is bearing down on you – the pedestrian – is suddenly slowed to a halt and can barely move forward, that lack of movement is a positive thing. 

CB: Yeah. Well, and it reminded me of this quote I actually quote in my book from Dorotheus where he says that Mars-Saturn conjunctions can have some positive outcomes because they balance each other out due to the extremes of the heat of Mars versus the cold of Saturn creating a middle ground, but that it does ultimately lead to – it says in Greek – inactions. So I think we can see how that worked out in some ways. 

But in terms of the future, the longer the strait is closed, the worse of a global recession this will create, and it’s rapidly turning into a point of no return situation in terms of the damage it’s doing to the entire world economy. And currently both sides – the US and Iran – are trying to wait the other out thinking that they can last longer than the other can. And the markets this month have been very surprisingly disconnected from what’s going on with the energy shock in sort of like, a Saturn-Neptune hopium sort of delusion. But it’s just a matter of time before that catches up if this keeps going longer and longer, which it appears that it will. This week, like I said, oil futures have started going up, so they may already starting to be waking up in terms of the market price of oil starting to match what oil actually costs to buy right now in different parts of the world. 

AC: Yeah. There are a number of instances where people are very confused by the price of various goods and fuels not matching the actual situation. I’m seeing that in a lot of areas. And it’s worth noting that in 1979, which is parallel to 2026 in the Mars cycle, if you look at oil prices from the beginning of the year versus the end of the year, they quadrupled in 1979. And although they’ve roughly doubled at this point, if 2026 ends up being parallel to 1979, we would be looking at only being halfway there. But yeah, this Mars-Saturn conjunction both augering this dramatic dual blockade that everyone knows is doing lasting damage to global trade – like, we got the thing that occurs, but whenever you have the conjunction of two planets, it’s just like the conjunction of the Sun and Moon every month is the New Moon, which says something about the entire cycle to come – in the case of the Sun and the Moon just a month – but Mars and Saturn have a like, 25-month just over two year cycle, and if we think back to those previous Mars-Saturn conjunctions, did the Mars-Saturn conjunction which happened in late winter, early spring of 2020 only have an effect on that month? Or did it have a lot to say and did it auger events that would have an impact for the next two years? And then similarly with that extremely early point in the Russo-Ukraine war where Mars and Saturn were coming together and Kiev was literally besieged – right, Mars-Saturn besiegement – that was a rough point, but it had consequences which lasted for years and which we are still in the midst of. And so a conjunction is the beginning of a whole cycle in addition to being a dramatic moment in its own right. 

CB: Yeah, that’s a great point. Like, conjunctions are seed moments, and it was laying the – planting – the seeds for something that’s gonna be growing and developing for some time, you know, over the course of the next year especially. But a lot of the people that specialize in oil and energy markets and things like that are all keep talking as if this is like, a tsunami that already is out there that’s like, rushing towards land, but just hasn’t — 

AC: Yeah. 

CB: — fully hit yet, and — 

AC: That’s a great metaphor.

CB: Yeah, I think that’s gonna end up being a metaphor that we’re gonna be using a lot in retrospect over the next month or two to describe this weird period of calm just before the full impact of this energy shock really hits everywhere around the world as hard as it seems like it’s about to. 

AC: Yep. 

CB: All right. So in terms of the war, I mean, it seems like a matter of time before that conflict will reignite. And we were surprised a ground invasion didn’t take place on the Mars-Saturn conjunction, although we’re not really out of the woods yet because neither side really seems ready to make the necessary concessions, like I said, and the US has actually been building up forces, including troops and sending in planes and equipment and other stuff like that. A third carrier just showed up shortly after or right around the time of the Mars-Saturn conjunction; it arrived in the Middle East or near the Middle East. And in terms of the short term in the next month, there’s two aspects really that we have our eye on that look tense. The first is, like I said, the peace-shattering Mars-Jupiter square in the first week of May seems to be the next potential hot spot where tensions could flare again. And I’m reusing the keyword “peace-shattering” for Mars-Jupiter, because that was the keyword I used in January for the Mars-Jupiter opposition, which ended up then falling on the start of the military operation or whatever you wanna call it with the US and Venezuela. So that’s the first potential hotspot at the beginning of the month in the first week of May, and then the second potential hotspot is that Mars-Pluto square in the final week of May looks particularly destructive as well. So we’ll be keeping our eye on both of those in terms of the short-term future. 

AC: Yeah. And a question that arises for me is, is it either of those that reignites serious or active hostilities as opposed to the sort of whatever you wanna call what we’re doing now? But it’s like, is it either or those, or do we end up needing to wait until the Mars-Uranus conjunction in very early July? Which is a more dramatic moment for Mars than either of the two that happen this month, but it might not take much to plunge back into active warfare. 

CB: Yeah. Because that’s the thing with – Uranus has now, by the end of April, has just moved into Gemini where it’s gonna stay for the next seven years. And as a result of that, as astrologers that have followed that cycle, and I have done multiple episodes about it, we know that this is just the beginning of a larger conflict. And it’s a larger conflict that the US will be involved in over the next seven years just as it has been involved in one of the most important and pivotal but also violent and deadly wars in its history have happened during the Uranus in Gemini transits that we’ve had three of them during the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II. So we can see then that there was also hints of that larger conflict, that larger war developing this month around the Mars-Saturn conjunction where, for example, the ship that was shot, the Iranian ship that was shot on April 19th the day of the Mars-Saturn conjunction was carrying parts. It’s speculated to be military parts from China to Iran, and Trump even mentioned this at one point in passing in an interview and saying he was surprised about it. Or elsewhere, the Ukrainians have been targeting Russian oil exports over the past month where – because the price of oil’s been going up, Russia stands to make a lot of money from the price going up and them being a huge oil exporter, so Ukraine has been attacking their ability to export oil to devastating effect, possibly wiping out as much as like, 40 percent of Russia’s exports of oil over the past month. Similarly, Iran’s foreign minister recently met with Vladimir Putin in Russia, and there’s also a recent spat of articles about Russia’s economy getting worse, which is interesting in terms of the Saturn-Neptune conjunction and the history of that with Russia. So there’s all these things, like, swirling around that are creating these overlapping connections between the different countries that are at war or in conflict with each other right now in a way that’s very reminiscent of previous major wars, especially World War II and the build-up to that. 

So some of what it feels like we’re seeing – some of what I think we’re seeing right now with Uranus going into Gemini – is the build-up to what eventually will be like, a larger world conflict on the scale of a World War II or potentially a World War III.

AC: Yeah. There’s a real danger that these conflicts start sort of knitting together, escalating and drawing other parties in as well as sort of knitting together into larger, world-spanning conflicts. We also have elements that are reminiscent of World War I and other conflicts. We have – one major difference between the current state of things and World War II, which I don’t know if it’s better or worse, but a lot of the both actual and potential belligerents have serious internal crises that they are barely managing to stave off, and I would include the United States in that. Like, there’s a lot of internal pressure in Russia, in the United States, in the EU, in China. Like, this is a period – instead of countries being unified within themselves, though perhaps for abhorrent reasons like we had during World War II, all of these belligerents have huge internal contradictions which are a threat to them at the same time as these external conflicts are sparking up. It seems to be a very signature for this point in time. 

You know, we talked plenty and for years about whether this run of Uranus through Gemini would, for the United States, look more like the Civil War – internal conflict – or World War II – external conflict. And I think we’re getting – what we’re beginning to see now that Uranus is in Gemini, although I think it’s been visible for a while, is that we have not just in the United States but in a number of important nations a simultaneous escalation of internal and external conflicts. 

CB: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, the US with its Uranus return starting and even this week, there’s been stunning stuff happening with the Voting Rights Act being struck down or portions of it, with political persecutions that are starting to happen – I mean, the US is going through an incredibly important transformative period where the very nature of the way the government used to operate is being challenged and is potentially being transformed into something different than what it had been or to what the way that it was set up, essentially. And we’re also witnessing that transition into potentially something very new and different at this time as well. 

AC: Yeah. Well, and just the, yeah, and into the fight over that. Again, Uranus has been in Gemini for five days now. We had our little preview last year for a couple months, but we are five days into a show that’s gonna run for seven seasons. 

CB: Yeah. And something ominous happened right on the day of that ingress that we’ll talk about – although maybe this is the time to talk about it, and we could rearrange the outline a little bit. I mean —

AC: Yeah. Let’s do that. I wasn’t trying to prompt that, but that feels right. 

CB: Okay. So let’s – let me move things around then. So Uranus went into Gemini; it finished its seven or eight-year transit through Taurus which it started in 2018 and 2019. On April 25th, Uranus fully moved into Gemini, and on the very day of the Uranus ingress, like pretty much in the hour – like, Leisa and I were watching it and looking at charts and watching the Uranus ingress take place on Solar Fire when I got a call from a friend, Nicholas, who said that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner had happened, and what happened is somebody attempted to assassinate President Trump. And at the exact time that it happened, the Moon was at 29 degrees of Leo conjoining Trump’s 29 degree of Leo Ascendant, and it was squaring Uranus, which was at 29 Taurus. And then basically as that was unfolding, Uranus switched into Gemini. 

And you know, I had a couple of astrological takes about that, but one of them had to do with the – well. First, what’s your reaction to that, or is there anything I missed in describing that? 

AC: Well, it’s just one, it’s just stunning. Like, Uranus does two ingresses like, every seven years. And for Uranus’s ingress into Gemini, which is the beginning of a seven years out of every 84 which is absolutely loaded for US history for literally within minutes, like the same part of the same day, to have an attempt on the life of a US president is shockingly coincident with the patterns we’ve seen in history. And certainly, I don’t know, omen is maybe not exactly the right word, but maybe it is? It seems like it can’t help but speak to the cycle which we are now in until the early 2030s. And I would point out that during the two previous runs of Uranus through Gemini, our presidents did not survive Uranus in Gemini. FDR died while Uranus was in Gemini, and Abraham Lincoln was assassinated while Uranus was in Gemini. So it’s not a particularly healthy time to be the president of the United States based on historical precedent. 

CB: Yeah. I mean, my main take was just that that happening right on the day of the ingress seemed like an omen in the sense that Uranus in Gemini historically has coincided with the three most defining but also violent and bloodiest wars in US history. And you know, to have that happen the day of that ingress and the repetition of that now means we’re moving into another incredibly important defining turning point in US history, but also one that will probably be particularly violent and bloody. So beginning that with an attempt on the president’s life was probably or will probably end up being a notable omen for the new chapter that we’ll experience over the next seven years when we look back on it in retrospect some day. 

AC: Yeah. It’s uncomfortably on the nose with the historical precedents. 

CB: Yeah. So and immediately afterwards, one of the things I noticed was there was immediately a lot of discussion about people claiming it was like, a false flag, and that it was a fake assasination attempt or something like that. And I don’t really have an opinion – I mean, I don’t think it was a false flag myself. But I thought it was interesting that that discussion became so intense afterwards, because we were still having the Mars-Neptune opposition, and just a few weeks ago, Nick and I did a previate podcast for patrons where we were looking at historical charts and we were looking at the early 1930s when in Germany, Hitler came to power, and then the Reichstag Fire happened. And that was right on a Mars-Neptune conjunction, and a lot of people believed it was a false flag – that Hitler and the Nazis had like, burned that down and then used it to like, take political power. But I was reading up on it recently, and apparently – I was reading some summaries by historians on Reddit on the AskHistorians subreddit, and the consensus was that the historians themselves don’t believe that the Reichstag Fire was a false flag, but just that the Nazis capitalized on it afterwards to take additional political power. But that much of the public believed that it was a false flag, so I thought there was an interesting echo there of just like, that coming up two different times in history under a Mars-Neptune conjunction. 

AC: Yeah, that makes sense. And it also, I think, speaks to the Saturn-Neptune point in history that we occupy where it is increasingly difficult to verify or dismiss contending claims. Like, the epistemological fugue of the present is a very real thing, and it’s noticeable on a daily basis, and I think it will be extremely noticeable in historical retrospect where it’s so confusing. 

CB: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So I wanna run through just a few other news stories, because there’s a few other interesting things happen. And one of the recurring themes was that Mars-Neptune conjunction. It was very loud this month, and I was actually surprised at how loud it was in certain ways that made sense. 

So one of the themes that came up at the very beginning of the month but it kept coming up over and over again in different ways is that the Mars-Neptune conjunction went exact around April 13th, although it was already within orb and building up by the beginning of the month, and there was this string of different stories in the news related to the concept of religious heresy and just this idea of heresy. And so for example, on April 5th on Easter, Trump said, “Praise be to Allah,” on Easter Sunday. And it was at the end of like, a profanity-laced threat demanding that Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz. So it wasn’t like, a positive thing; it was him using it in some sort of provocative way. And then again on April 11th, Trump said it again a second time. 

The following day on April 12th, Trump attacked the pope, and there was this whole drama for like, a week about Trump getting in this back-and-forth with the pope and attacking the pope and everything that came along with that. Then the next day on April 12th – or actually, it was the same day that he attacked the pope – he posted a picture of himself as Jesus. And this caused, like, you know, that’s in Christianity is like, a heretical thing to do, so it caused all of this outrage and discussion. And then the very next day, he ended up having to – there was a bunch of backlash, so he ended up deleting it and walking it back and pretending it was something else, that he was a doctor or something like that. 

But what was interesting and I found fascinating is the same day on April 12th, that weekend I think, Nine Inch Nails did this amazing performance of a song, an old song of theirs – it’s like, 30 years old – that’s titled “Heresy” at Coachella, which they performed on April 11th. But then the video went viral on April 12th because it was such a cool, like, remix of the song with a new digital producer that they were working with that was really cool and the performance was really stunning. But part of the lyric in it was like, you know, “God is dead and no one cares.” And — 

AC: “If there is a hell, I’ll see you there.” Yeah. A banger from 15-year-old Austin’s world. 

CB: Yeah. Young Austin was super into it. No, I was really – well, they released like, an album based on that later, and it was really good that week. So that happened. Then get this – a few days later, April 15th, Pete Hegseth leads a prayer circle at the Pentagon, but he ends up using this fake bible quote from Pulp Fiction where Jules’ famous statement in Pulp Fiction about righteous vengeance and other things like that, which people often – to be fair – commonly think is a real bible quote, was just like, a mashed together fake bible quote that Quentin Tarantino used in the film. And Hegseth used it, and then it caused all of this outrage and stuff. Although it was interesting, because it brought up that apparently, Hegseth has been leading these prayers at the Pentagon for months now, and it really made me think of Neptune in Aries and this idea of a religious shift behind militaries happening sort of in the background right now. 

Then there was all sorts of other stuff. On April 19th, there was a photo of Israeli soldiers smashing a statue of Jesus in Lebanon that went viral, and then the IDF surprisingly put out a statement acknowledging that it was one of their soldiers. On April 24th, Russell Brand struggled in an interview where Piers Morgan asked him to tell him why he brought this bible to court and what passage what really inspired him, and Brand looked through it for like, a minute or two and couldn’t find a passage, so it was like, another notable instance. It just —

AC: Yeah, a little bit more on that and adding —

CB: Okay. 

AC: — the Neptune note, many people are quite skeptical of Russell Brand’s recently strongly professed conversion. It apparently, from what I know, his conversion to Christianity – very public conversion – also happens to coincide with a number of sexual assault cases coming up that many people believe it to be moral camouflage, or you know, totally fake and for P.R., which is perhaps part of why he was challenged about it. I believe he was also wearing like, a giant clunky wooden cross. Like, it’s really like, LARPing pretty hard is the impression. So that’s another Neptune camouflage, concealment, deception, et cetera – all of those tier one keywords are present around Russell Brand’s situation as I understand it. 

CB: Yeah. Yeah. And well, it’s like, a year ago when I did the Saturn-Neptune episode with Nick, we kept finding instances of Saturn-Neptune conjunctions coincided with the founding of different religious communities over the past 2,000 years, including some major worldwide religions. But in this instance, it seemed like this triple conjunction of Mars, Neptune, and Saturn had to do with the rules surrounding religious belief and what happens when someone transgresses those rules. And that was part of what I was picking up during the course of this. And with the conjunctions, I actually suspect there’s a couple conjunctions that I think were important in the first century with the founding of christianity as a community and as a religious community and some of the first structurings of it, especially yeah, or early on. But it reminded me also of a lot of the delineations in ancient astrological texts for like, when really difficult placements are in the 9th house – it would delineate it in like, Firmicus says people who will commit heresy or sometimes of atheists who reject god or the idea of spirituality or other things like that. And Austin, you’d done an article years ago about like — 

AC: Yeah. 

CB: — Marilyn Manson having Saturn in the 9th house in a night chart, right?

AC: Yeah. I think I wrote that for the Mountain Astrologer in 2012? But yeah, it’s a night chart; Saturn is in Aries in the 9th house. And it’s someone – like, Marilyn Manson’s fame was literally being wildly theatrically blasphemous. Like, I believe the most successful worldwide tour was the Antichrist Superstar tour – Saturn right there in the 9th. And that was during his Saturn return when he became famous for blasphemy. And Firmicus says that this person will be hated by gods and emperors alike, and so you have both like, a religious disdain, right, where back in his heyday, there would be scads of religious protesters, but people were also concerned and condemnatory about Marilyn Manson from a secular angle as well. So that was one of the moments that sold me on 2,000-year-old delineations not just being hyperbolic and outdated. But yeah, like, literally a heresy configuration. 

CB: Right, totally. Well, and I had talked about this recently with Madonna’s chart where she has Mars in the 9th house, and sometimes pushing boundaries religiously or doing things that were perceived as heretical at the time. Like the music video for “Like A Virgin” was hugely controversial at the time in the ‘80s, for example. But even more recently, you know, we talked a lot last month about how this Mars-Saturn conjunction was happening in Trump’s 9th house and how the 9th house related to foreign countries, thinking about the war with Iran. But it’s also the 9th house, so it’s like, of course, the Mars-Saturn-Neptune conjunction is like, he ends up posting a picture of himself as Jesus. And then he gets in a fight with the pope of like, the head of certain denomination of Christianity. So that’s pretty on-the-nose as well. 

AC: Yeah. Yeah, that’s – and he’s got – he doesn’t have any planets in the 9th, but the ruler of the 9th is Mars, which is right on the Ascendant in his nativity. 

CB: Right. And one delineation in this instance is like, posts picture of themself as Jesus. 

AC: Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, in many ways, it shows you what is the true source of his faith? What does he believe in? 

CB: Right. Yeah. Okay. So that was a Mars-Neptune thing. Another Mars-Saturn-Neptune thing is the weaponization of AI where early this month, there were these AI Lego music videos that were being produced in connection with Iran that went viral. And I thought this was fascinating from an astrological standpoint, because it was like, Mars was weaponizing the AI video of Saturn-Neptune that we’ve been seeing growing and developing and becoming perfected over the past few years. And the videos were like, these – there was one company in particular that was producing them that the news reports were saying was being funded by Iran or something like that to make sort of like, propaganda-type videos. But they also had music. There was like, AI music raps, basically, which were kind of catchy, but they were also just brutal and very cutting. And there kept being more and more of them produced as the month progressed so that it ended up centering especially on the Mars-Neptune conjunction that went exact on April 13th, which is really, really interesting.

AC: Yeah. And it makes a lot of sense astrologically that Mars coming to join Saturn and Neptune weaponizes, right? Like, we could literally use that as a keyword for Mars. Like, what does Mars do when it comes to other planets? Like, it figures out how to weaponize whatever is present there. 

CB: Absolutely. Yeah. So I wrote down some headlines for some dates. Like, April 2nd, Time magazine published a piece analyzing the psychological impact of the videos, dubbing it, “New age of AI propaganda.” Or April 15th, closer to the conjunction, The Guardian published a major report declaring it that Iran is “winning the propaganda war” against the US. So it’s interesting, because this is the kind of thing that we expected would be more prevalent in the 2024 presidential election, but the AI didn’t quite get there by that point to be as impactful as it perhaps could have if that was happening today. But on April 16th, just three days after the conjunction, in response to mounting pressure, YouTube officially banned the Iran-linked explosive media accounts that were producing the main videos; however, the attempts to suppress the content for the most part backfired, because the ban drove massive engagement on X as well as Telegram where the videos continued to rack up billions of cumulative views globally. 

So part of the takeaway from that was that the videos represented a significant tactical shift in modern psychological warfare where it was, in a way, like, weaponizing western internet culture and humor and recognizable intellectual property against the United States. And I thought that was a really interesting and unique manifestation, but it was very, very distinctive. 

AC: Yeah. No, and that’s a good summary of it. It reminds me of some – not too many years ago when it began to be recognized that drones were useful for all sorts of these things, all sorts of things in warfare, and then that will just be the case forever. Like, why would you not use drones to spot for your artillery? Like, when these tools are out there, like, they just get picked up and become part of the game. 

CB: Yeah. Well, and it was another — 

AC: Yeah, like, first instance rather – like, the first instance or recognizable instance of a new normal rather than like, look at this crazy thing that happened this one time on this set of conjunctions. 

CB: Yeah. Well, and it was also another instance of big thing happens in February, which was the release of the Epstein files on the conjunction, and then Saturn-Neptune conjunction gets reactivated in April where a lot of the focus of the videos, these music videos basically, was like, the Epstein files and stuff like that and saying things about that. 

AC: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, one of the things that struck me was that even though the like, low attention span sort of anglosphere internet culture has mostly moved on from the Epstein files, it made me reflect that the release – well, the reality or realities that those files indicate have I don’t know permanently, but have done significant long-term damage to the United States’ credibility and reputation, and that just because the news cycle isn’t dwelling on it now doesn’t mean that it hasn’t lodged in the minds and perspectives of people all around the world. 

CB: Yeah. And that actually reminds me like, one of the weird things that came out nowhere earlier this month was Melania just gave a speech out of nowhere talking about how she had no connection to the Epstein files, and so that was another way in which suddenly it came back again out of nowhere even though it didn’t at the time, it was a little unclear even why that was happening. 

AC: Mm-hmm. 

CB: Yeah. All right. One other major Mars-Saturn-Neptune that was a really heavy one that happened this month was – I don’t know how to summarize it, but there was a story that came out about websites that were men who were drugging their spouses and assaulting their partners and recordings of this. And this – there’s many different angles, and there’s been a lot of different things written about it, but one of the unique things that I wanted to add to the discussion was just that I thought it was a reactivation of, again, the Saturn-Neptune conjunction from February, because in February I talked about how there was the case of the French woman Gisele Pelicot and her biography came out right on the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in February. Like, within a day or something. And she had been involved in the past few years as the Saturn-Neptune conjunction was building, which was a repetition of her own natal conjunction, of this famous case where her partner had been drugging her and assaulting her and lots of other really terrible things connected with that. But that she was very open with her story, and she published her biography and was trying to help raise awareness about this as a broader societal issue around the world. But then so that happened in February, but then two months later, this went viral again based on a CNN story that was published in late March, but for some reason it went viral in April and suddenly brought this to the attention of people that this was a far bigger, worse, and more pervasive issue of this happening in different organized ways. And so I wanted to mention that, because in the original Saturn-Neptune research a year ago, we had picked up on a theme of poisonings that had come up in history. And in February, there was even a report from some US government agency issuing an alert about increased cases of like, partners poisoning partners, but that seems to be one of the weird themes about this conjunction then that’s sort of getting reactivated now, and then some of the adjacent things that come with it. 

AC: Yeah. Yeah. And that, of course, overlaps significantly with the themes – the Epstein material. And that also resonates with the 1989-’90 Saturn-Neptune and what got called the Satanic Panic and the many reports of sort of regular abuse of a similar sort. Not identical, but this does seem to be one of the heavier, as you put it, themes that comes up with Saturn-Neptune. 

CB: Yeah. Well, and in the CNN article that I read, one of the people – one of the women, the victims – was talking about how she was then being like, gaslighted by her spouse afterwards who was saying like, “no, this is not happening,” or “you’re just imagining things” or something, and that really spoke to the Saturn-Neptune as well. But all of that came out, and there was a lot of discussion about it in the astrological community when the Aries stellium pileup peaked when there was like, six planets in Aries, including the Moon and the Sun around that New Moon in Aries. So there was just something very striking and poignant about that happening this month that was also very disturbing. 

AC: Yeah. 

CB: Yeah. Okay. So originally, I was gonna end the news section with like, the Uranus in Gemini thing. So that’s like, not a great way to end the news section, so maybe to summarize, is there anything we forgot to mention or any news things that you can think of that we didn’t cover? 

AC: Yeah, there are a few things. So in addition to Mars visiting the Saturn-Neptune conjunction, weaponizing the existing AI stuff which we’ve seen explode under Saturn-Neptune, but we also saw a significant increase in criticism of AI, especially LLMs, during that same period. And part of it is a significant increase in articles speculating about the limitations of LLMs being significantly greater than has been marketed. And in addition to that, there’s been a lot of criticism in particular of Sam Altman of OpenAI, who’s really been the poster boy for AI and OpenAI being the sort of poster company for AI. And so in addition to significant criticism of Sam Altman, the Mars in Aries cherry on top is the fact that there was a not-very-effective attempt to firebomb his house – a Molotov cocktail was thrown. And that’s another, again, almost keyword for Mars or cliche for Mars, right? Like, throwing incendiaries. And so yeah, the Mars in addition to weaponizing also ratchets up the critique. You know, and so yeah, that was a thing that happened. 

CB: Yeah. Yeah. There’s been some sort of pivot, it seems like, with OpenAI ever since February where when the war started, there was also that article that was written by the president of Anthropic about whether AI could be used in war, and then since that time, Anthropic’s stock price has skyrocketed and gone up quite a lot, or investments and different things like that connected with it. Whereas it seems like OpenAI’s been having more problems with closing Sora. Right now there’s a whole thing happening about a court case involving Elon Musk suing them as well. So it does seem like there’s a lot of interesting issues there that coincided with Mars hitting the Saturn-Neptune, which is in some ways like, piercing a little bit the AI bubble that OpenAI was the one that created or really helped to spearhead over the past few years. 

AC: Yeah, the concerns and criticisms about OpenAI is perhaps the most egregiously bubbled have proliferated across the industry where people are looking at some of the – like, the rate of cash burn and just how expensive things are, and how certain benchmarks of performance have not been delivered or been delayed, and there’s growing concern. But it is not a bubble pop moment. It will probably look significant from the vantage point of whenever we get that bubble pop, but in that direction but not the moment of maximum drama. 

CB: Well, yeah, I mean, that’s literally the only thing that’s propping up the economy and the stock market right now is the huge investments in AI. So if that bubble – if and when that bubble – does pop, like, that would be a turning point and would be disastrous. 

AC: Yeah. One of several factors that will take us into a not-so-abundant time. 

CB: Yeah. 

AC: On top of the energy shock, on top of the housing market in the United States, and on top of other things. 

CB: Yeah. Totally. 

AC: It’s one of the big ones. 

CB: All right, my friend, we could keep talking about news all day. Wait – was there a second story, or was that it? 

AC: I think that’s it. 

CB: Okay. You didn’t have like, a fun one or like, a positive — 

AC: No, no. 

CB: Okay. 

AC: The other one, no, was about fractured leadership and… 

CB: Yeah! Well, that does sound fun, but let’s — 

AC: I don’t know about you – I didn’t have a great April, and from what I could tell, the world didn’t have a great April. Maybe I need to travel in time back to the moment that the Venus-Jupiter sextile was perfect. Probably had some really adorable times hanging out with my toddler, but those aren’t front of mind right now. 

CB: Yeah. I did notice around on the Mars-Saturn-Mercury conjunction when it went exact, I had like, three different 3rd house things all happen in the same 24-hour period where it was like, a neighbor returned something of mine, but it was damaged, but it was an important thing. A listener gave me some tips on – like, tangible tips – on helping improve my voice in terms of doing long recordings and my voice not getting worn out, which I started to implement, which are great. And then like, my uncle called me out of nowhere; I hadn’t spoken to in a few years. And it was all in the same like, 24-hour period of having a pileup of planets in my 3rd house of communication, extended relatives, and neighbors. 

Yeah. So if anybody else — 

AC: Not too shabby. 

CB: Not too shabby! So if anybody else had an interesting like, activation of whatever house that conjunction of planets happened in, let us know in the YouTube comments. 

All right, my friend. Let’s take a little break and then we’ll jump into the forecast. 

AC: All right. 

CB: I wanted to give a shout out to our sponsor, which is the United Astrology Conference which is taking place September 3rd through the 9th, 2026, in the city of Chicago. So the United Astrology Conference, also known as UAC, is the biggest astrological conference in the world, and it’s typically held every four years since the 1980s. However, this is the first time back in eight years, with the last one being in 2018. So you can join thousands of astrologers for an unforgettable experience of discovery, collaboration, and expansion. UAC is the place to be to sharpen your skills, connect with other astrologers, deepen your insights, and grow your astrology business. It’s the world’s biggest astrology conference, and here are some stats. 

So there’s gonna be five astrology-packed days. They’re expecting more than 1,500 people from around the world on all levels of astrological interest to join them that week. There’s gonna be 186 speakers giving lectures, with 270 lectures plus 20 informal lunchtime lectures. There’s gonna be 15 different tracks with different topics, including a track on the essentials of astrology, a track on health and wellness, relationships, finance and economics, Vedic astrology, traditional astrology, mundane astrology, horary astrology, and more. There’s also gonna be six pre-conference workshops and six post-conference workshops if you wanna do a deep dive with a specific astrologer all day. And there’s also gonna be an opening ceremony keynote by Chani Nicholas. 

So it’s all happening in the vibrant city of Chicago, and there’s gonna be nightly entertainment and many other events. UAC is brought to you by the AFA, ISAR, NCGR, and OPA along with the ACVA and the AYA. These organizations are also holding exams and member events all week. 

So for more information about the conference and accommodations, visit UACAstrology.com, and I’ll put a link to the conference in the description below this video or on the page on our website for this episode. 

So it’s gonna be a great conference, yeah, Austin? 

AC: Yeah, I’ll be there. I will be conducting a workshop as well as giving a variety of lectures. Yeah, UAC is an irreplaceable thing. There’s no other conference or gathering of astrologers like it. 

CB: Absolutely. Yeah. So definitely take advantage of that, because like I said, it does not happen that often. It used to be every four years; last one’s been eight years. Who knows when the next one will be with the way the world’s going. 

AC: Yeah, for sure. 

CB: All right, my friend, why don’t we transition to talking about the astrology of May? 

AC: All right. 

Well, there’s a Full Moon on the first day — 

CB: Hold on. 

AC: — of the month. 

CB: Yeah. Let me put the planetary alignments calendar up, just to give people that quick preview who are watching the video version on YouTube of what some of the major aspects are this month that we got coming up and that we’re gonna be talking about here. 

So should we do big picture stuff sort of like I started with and then get into things? Should we go through chronological? What are you feeling today? 

AC: Yeah, I like a quick overview, and then into the nitty-gritty, and then a summary. I like that five-paragraph essay format! 

CB: All right! So the big overview is, you know, to me, this feels like a month where everything’s sandwiched in between those two harsh Mars aspects. You know, not to be a downer and everything since there’s been so many tense aspects over the past few months, but it’s like, we open this month with that tense – as I said, “peace-shattering” – Mars-Jupiter square that happens in the first week of May. And then towards the end of the month, we get that really tense and sometimes violent Mars-Pluto square that happens in the last week of May. And then things are either scrunched in the middle of that, or they are happening at the end of the month when we finally move into some really positive alignments for once in early June. 

AC: Yeah. I mean, I share your opinion of the two Mars moments. I think the positive shifts from between the 18th through the 20th outweigh that Mars. I really like how things look, with some exceptions at the end of the month. You know, we get a better Mercury; we get Mercury, Venus, and Mars all more or less improve their positions with caveats. And so I like the last 10 days of the month. And where things are during the end of the month will only get better during the next 10-15 days of June. And so we’re headed out of the months of madness into a brief reprieve is my take on it. It’s a brief reprieve; there are months of madness scheduled for not that much later this year, but I think in general, people will enjoy the end of the month much more than the beginning of the month. 

CB: I think that’s true. I think we do have a brief reprieve in early June, but I think – I don’t wanna overstate that, because there’s an obstacle course before we get there, and it’s not 10 days at the end of the month, because that Mars square with Pluto happens late. So the window when the good stuff kicks in is much more narrow at the very end of May, because here’s the – I’ll put up the chart for those watching the video version. There’s that Mars-Pluto square that’s on May 25th. So that’s already super late in the month, and we don’t really even get out of like, three-degree range land until, what, like, 29th? But – and then we also have to clear this like, Venus-Saturn square on the 29th, and then Venus is cruising into that conjunction with Jupiter after that. But it’s like, we’re doing the next forecast episode – or I’m doing the next forecast episode by then where we’ll be checking in with that. 

AC: Yeah. Yeah, it’s on its way to a better place, but as you pointed out, there are Venus-Saturn and the Mars-Pluto both need to be cleared. I guess just the directionality of that, that knowing that right after those get cleared things look as good as they’re going to this year gives me a sense that they’re in a positive trajectory. And as I mentioned earlier, I really like that Mars is leaving Aries. Just leaving behind that copresence with Saturn-Neptune I think is going to bring down the inflammation significantly. 

CB: Yeah. That’s gonna be a huge tone shift in the middle of the month on May 18th when Mars goes into Taurus, finally breaks that sign-based conjunction with Saturn and Neptune – the brakes perhaps are lifted off the gas a little bit at that time. 

AC: And it’s this period, I think, that in overview is worth pointing out is between the 17th and the 20th, we have Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the Sun all change signs. Right? Mercury’s into Gemini on the 17th, and then on the 18th, we get Mars and then Venus, and then the Sun on the 20th. And so that’s just a huge shift in a very – it’s four planets in as many days. And so that just changes the feeling. And we can leave aside whether it’s for the better or for the worse; it’s just really different. Like, the month up to the 17th is very different than the month after the 20th with the 17th through the 20th being that major set of gear shifts. 

CB: Yeah. There’s also some really nice sextiles in the middle of the month. There is first the Sun hits that sextile with Jupiter around the 10th, and then a couple days later, Mercury sextiles Jupiter on the 12th. And then later we get Venus and Mars switching signs at the same time with Venus going into Cancer and Mars into Taurus and then Venus sextiles Mars right at that time, which is a nice little – I described it as a sensual aspect at the beginning, but a nice little balance between those two planets. 

AC: Yeah. And it’s worth noting that, you know, we’re talking about sextiles rather than massive piles of conjunction, which we have basically had every month of this year beginning in January. We’ve had big pileups with dramatic implications and effects in January and February and March and in April, and so we’re heading out of that everything mashed together in dramatic assembly situation, which I’m okay with. 

CB: Yeah. But it’s like, like I said at the beginning, we’re not out of the woods because some stuff hits the fan in the first week. And so while —

AC: Yeah. The first half of the month is just April part two. 

CB: Yeah, exactly. So while there’s great stuff to look forward to and still some hope that there’s some good aspects coming up in the opening of the month in the first week, this is the one we’ve gotta get through first, which is Mars hits about 19 degrees of Aries, and it squares Jupiter at 19 degrees of Cancer. And because Mars is earlier in the order of signs, Mars is actually in the dominant position where it’s overcoming Jupiter and therefore afflicting it or maltreating it so that the Martian warlike principle of Mars is winning out over the peace principle of Jupiter, like the peace and stability and good thing principle of Jupiter. And this is further problematic because pretty much simultaneously, Pluto is slowing down and stationing retrograde at five degrees of Aquarius right as that’s happening. So there’s like, this intensification of Pluto and then Mercury comes up and squares Pluto at the same time. 

AC: And we are just coming off a Full Moon in the sign of Mars! Right? 

CB: In Scorpio on the first. 

AC: Yeah, and so we’ve got – which predisposes the ensuing two weeks to martial activity, and so Mars is making that square to Jupiter. Pluto, Mercury, yeah, what reprieve may exist is not present in the first week of the month at all! It’s, if anything, a re-intensification. 

CB: Yeah. And it’s like, Mars is still within 10 degrees of Saturn at this point —

AC: Yeah. 

CB: — of that conjunction. It’s pretty much within 15 degrees of Neptune. So it’s like, that is still very much operative, and then all of a sudden we get Mars overwhelming Jupiter. And you know, that keyword like I said “peace-shattering” or breaking the peace worked really well in January, because it literally was like, right on the Mars-Jupiter opposition that the Venezuela military raid happened. 

So that’s one element of things is having the reactivation of this tough lineup of planets in Aries that was already so tense and where we had this tense peace – this like, uncomfortable peace – for like, the past few weeks. But now with Mars hitting Jupiter, we’ve had previous Mars-Jupiter aspects where there’s been like, an explosion. Like, sometimes it’s large explosion type energy both literally sometimes but also sometimes metaphorically in terms of the way that people experience that personally. 

AC: Yeah. Yeah, sometimes you have Jupiter magnifying what Mars does. 

CB: Yeah. And so that’s happening, and at the same time, Pluto is stationing at five degrees of Aquarius, which is as far into Aquarius as it’s gotten this time at all since Pluto moved into Aquarius a few years ago. And then that point of five degrees of Aquarius it’s just gonna be hanging out at all month until eventually Mars comes up and squares it there from five Taurus. So I feel like anybody that’s got stuff at five degrees of the fixed signs is just really gonna get kind of be getting nailed by that a couple of times this month, both with Pluto and the slow moving feelings of intense overwhelming transformative but sometimes very dark experiences that take you to the underworld, and then eventually you have to emerge out from under gets emphasized twice this month, both when Pluto first stations at five Aquarius and Mercury squares it, but then also when Mars comes up there. Because I remember the last few Mars-Pluto aspects; it’s like, you know, sometimes it’s extreme instances of violence like the Mars-Pluto square that happened in October of 2023, right? Not ‘22? So that was like, October 7th, and then everything that came after that. 

Then there was last year there was a terrorist thing that happened on New Year’s when there was the Mars-Pluto opposition and there was like, a truck that was blown up in front of a hotel I think in Vegas, and there was one other incident. Those fires started in LA around that time that then wiped out so many homes. And then during the very last Mars-Pluto opposition was when the pope died and his funeral happened like, right on the Mars-Pluto opposition when two of the ancient classical gods associated with the underworld, which are Pluto and in ancient astrology Mars and the Babylonian Nergal came into that close alignment, and there was this literally leaders from around the world flying in to mourn the death of a world leader. 

AC: Yeah. Yeah, Mars-Pluto annihilates and creates fear. And so that’s by far the most difficult thing that occurs at the end of the month. 

CB: Yeah. Like, everything’s just sandwiched between those two aspects, so it’s like, we have two really tense ones at the beginning and end, and then we have some good stuff in the middle sprinkled in the middle, and good stuff especially forming at the very end as a light does start to form after we get to the very depths of the sort of cavern that Mars and Pluto take us to. 

So that’s the large framing. The other large framing, the last large framing thing I wanted to do is last year when Uranus briefly dipped into Gemini, we didn’t end up getting a Sun-Uranus or a Mercury-Uranus conjunction in Gemini. They happened in Taurus a year ago. But this year is unique, because we’re gonna get our very first conjunctions where first on the 17th and 18th, Mercury – it ingresses into Gemini and then it conjoins Uranus in its home sign. So we get our very first Mercury-Uranus conjunction of this seven-year period that we’ll see many more of. And then a few days later, the Sun moves into Gemini and conjoins Uranus on the 22nd, and we get our very first reset of the synodic cycle between the Sun and Uranus in Gemini, which again is the first of like, six or seven of these over the next seven years. 

AC: Yeah. It’s a significant moment. 

CB: Yeah. It’s a significant moment because some of the themes, you know, those conjunctions are gonna be seed-planting moments. So there’s gonna be some things that are created or born at that time that will spark some of the technological – the innovations in technology and communications and travel that we’re expecting from this Uranus transit over the next seven years, the rapid advancements in those areas. There’s gonna be some seeds planted at that time we’re gonna have to pay attention to that will be born and begin to grow around those two conjunctions especially. Even though they’re otherwise light, passing conjunctions, I think they’re gonna be more important because they’re happening at the beginning of this larger transit, and that’s probably also true in terms of each of us personally. Whatever house Uranus has just moved into, those being seed planting moments for some of the things that are gonna grow and develop over the next seven years. 

AC: Yeah. Absolutely. Are we gonna come back to this when we do it sequentially? 

CB: Yeah. I just wanted to make sure we highlighted —

AC: I feel like we’ve strayed significantly from the overview, because I have things to say, but if we’re just gonna come back… 

CB: I mean, I wanted to mention this because this in my outline is my overview of two of the most important aspects of this month, but those are the last two I wanted to mention. 

AC: Okay. 

CB: Yeah. So you wanna go through sequentially now? 

AC: We just said that’s what we were gonna do; we don’t have to, but I need to know what structure we’re using if we’re not doing what we just said — 

CB: No, I’m just making sure you’re done with the – you didn’t have any other overview things to say? 

AC: No, no. I like a quicker survey. 

CB: All right. That’s good. So let’s back it up to May 1st, because we’re actually recording this in order to get a decent election for recording and releasing this episode, we’re actually recording this on April 30th and we’re releasing it on May 1st. And that is the first day of the month that coincides with our first alignment of the month, which is the month opens with a Full Moon in the sign of Scorpio right at the very top of the month, right? 

AC: Indeed. Yeah, first day of the month, Full Moon in Scorpio. 

CB: All right. 

AC: So there are a couple things I think worth noting about this. One, so this is a Mars-ruled lunation. 

CB: Hold on a sec, the mic cut out. I think your main mic got unplugged. All right. 

AC: Yeah, sorry about that. So the month kicks off with the Full Moon in Scorpio! The Moon in Scorpio is the Moon in a Mars-ruled sign, so we have more – we continue the emphasis on Mars. Our last lunation before this Full Moon in Scorpio was the New Moon in Aries – also Mars-ruled – which we had in the middle of April. But now we begin May with another Mars-ruled lunation. And as we just talked about, Mars is still doing dramatic things. Mars is closing in on the superior square to Jupiter, potentially wrecking what peace, ease, or slack is present or at least pressurizing them on a more individual level. And so it is in many ways, it’s going to feel like April did. Not a whole lot of relief present yet. 

CB: Yeah. I think I like this day in isolation, just because once the Full Moon goes exact in Scorpio, even though it’s ruled by Mars, it then applies to that nice trine with Jupiter in Cancer so that it’s a Full Moon, so it’s feeling like a high-energy day and like a culmination of some events, but there is some buoyancy or a little bit of optimism just in terms of the short term that day with the Moon applying to trine Jupiter and baking that into our Full Moon chart for that period of time. 

AC: Yeah, it is nice that the Moon after opposing the Sun moves into that nice trine with Jupiter. And so like, as a lunation, it doesn’t negate the difficulties or stresses, but it suggests with the Moon’s application to Jupiter that there are ways to better adapt to it; there are ways to repair things that may have gotten busted along the way, and that there may also be ways to shield or protect against further wear and tear or damage, right? The Jupiter gives some options to reduce the negative – a little padding – and maybe repair some difficulties and make some progress regardless of the difficult ongoing situation. 

CB: Yeah. And you know, with it being ruled by Mars and that bringing the Mars-Jupiter square into focus, which then just ramps up and accelerates over the next few days after that, some of the delineations of Mars-Jupiter sometimes can be taking decisive action towards something, but sometimes like, moving too fast or expanding too quickly and sometimes even recklessly in order to attempt to accomplish something. And I feel like that sets a little bit of tone for the first week as we’re having not just the Full Moon, but also moving into that Mars-Jupiter square. 

AC: Yeah. Yeah. There’s definitely an intensity and a drive. The pacing is not particularly sustainable, but sometimes that’s just not the pace of things, and you’ve gotta push for a little bit to catch up or to keep from falling behind. 

CB: Yeah. That’s a great point, because especially because Mars is like, still coming off of that conjunction with Saturn, which is all about slowing down and restricting movement and holding Mars back, whereas Jupiter is the opposite. Jupiter is like, throwing gasoline on the fire and telling Mars to just like, “Go, go, go!” And the speed principle of Mars increasing. Like, now the brakes have been lifted – your foot has been taken off the brakes and they’re fully on the gas, and it’s moving forward at a rapid pace. 

AC: Yeah. With a Full Moon’s worth of fuel tank. 

CB: Exactly. So high energy. So we come into the month pretty high energy, then. And it looks like Mercury changes signs and finally dips out of Aries at this time and moves into the sign of Taurus where it starts building up very quickly because it’s moving fast; it’s moving like, a couple degrees a day towards that square with Pluto. And that’s gonna be one of our characteristic aspects of Pluto station. But then the Mars-Jupiter square culminates on May 4th at 19 degrees of Aries to 19 degrees of Cancer. Is there anything else to say about that aspect, like, peaking at that time or culminating at that time? 

AC: Not – I mean, it is interesting that we have the Moon in perfect aspect to that Mars in another fire sign that day. Right? And so like, the Moon is very strongly supporting and fueling the martial side of that. 

CB: Yeah. 

AC: So — 

CB: Yeah, I like — 

AC: It’s definitely “go go go.” It’ll be interesting to see to what degree it marks a resumption of more active hostilities internationally. 

CB: Yeah. That’s definitely one of our main target points for that, of a significant exchange and sort of explosions and things like that around that time. You know, I —

AC: Because if – oh, go ahead. 

CB: No, go ahead. 

AC: I was gonna say, you know, like, because if we’re looking at the movement of the planets in this first part of May relative to this really intense deadlock between Mars and Saturn which looked like a dual blockade, right – at least in the largest of theatres – and we’re looking at is there anything that breaks that deadlock? What does that look like as you just said, like, as Mars moves away from Saturn and we have Mars super – we have Mars boosted, magnified, and in many ways in control of things with a lot of support by this point on May 4th. Right? So things are really getting moving after that period of deadlock. 

CB: Yeah. And maybe that’s worth then – even though when you do the numbers, like, Mars wins out in this instance, so we’re primarily delineating this square as negative because the malefic has the upper hand, Jupiter squaring Mars will have some positive benefics for Mars. Some affirming things, like affirming and saying “yes” to whatever it is that Mars wants to do, and that’s part of why we’re delineating it as like, speeding up and going fast, and the pace of things starting to quicken – especially coming off of the Full Moon. Other positive things that Jupiter might be saying “yes” to when it comes to Mars can be acting more decisively and directly after a period of either indecision or going too long without taking action – like, inaction was a major theme of Mars-Saturn-Neptune. So all of a sudden, taking decisive action and doing things in a more direct manner and a more decisive manner I think a lot of people are gonna be experiencing with this square.

AC: Yeah. Absolutely. Especially because in a lot of cases, the experience will be trying to do something, but with a lot of resistance and other things keep getting in the way, and so we come to May and a lot of things haven’t gotten done, but finally the road is opening up and people can floor it without having to drag a two-ton cinderblock behind them. And so there’s the release of – there’s a release from the frustration. And you know, when people can go as fast as they want in their cars, they don’t always make wise decisions, but it is nonetheless like, a bit of an exciting relief to be able to floor it. You may, you know, floor it into the car in front of you, or into a wall, but there is nonetheless a freedom of motion and action. It’s not a lowkey week. It’s not a take it easy, lowkey week, this first week of May. 

CB: No. It’s just not. It’s like cruising it down the Autobahn as opposed to like, we had been stuck in traffic in like, the LA freeway or something like that for the past few weeks. 

AC: Yeah. Yeah. The Autobahn with… Yeah. More like a video game combat version of the Autobahn. 

CB: Okay. So that, though, is not the only thing going on, because we see Pluto’s like, stationing this entire time, and it finally stations on the 6th and 7th of May, and that’s right as Mercury comes up and squares it around May 5th and 6th. 

So on the one hand, we have to think about Pluto and what Pluto’s been doing over the past few years. One of the primary things that we’ve seen is massive technological transformations through – you know, as soon as Pluto went into Aquarius, we started seeing the stuff with artificial intelligence breaking out and the way that that’s already transformed so many different things in the world in different ways. That reaching some sort of turning point here as Pluto stations, which may be even more important now that it’s not just Pluto stationing, but also Uranus has gone into Gemini so that we’re building up to that trine between Uranus and Pluto that’s gonna be happening over the next few years, which will just massively accelerate some of the technological transformations and changes that have already been happening. I feel like we get a really important turning point with that here for some reason this month at the beginning of May. 

AC: Yeah, it’s interesting. So it’s a retrograde station for Pluto, so it’s marking as far as Pluto’s gotten into Aquarius and as far as it’s going to get for most of this year. Right? Because Pluto will be pulling away, pulling back until moving forward again much later to exceed this point. But this is, you know, it’s almost like planting the flag on the Moon and then going back to earth, right? So the station shows it’s gotten this far, right, and most of us are not caught up with as far as it has actually gotten. And so the station will make that clear and doubly so because Mercury is tightly configured to it via square just as Pluto is planting that flag. And so that Mercury-Pluto square – Mercury’s not necessarily celebratory of what’s happening with Pluto. You know, the square is by nature awkward and brings out arguments or conflicts between planets. And so a lot of times, Mercury-Pluto gives a kind of haunted thinking or paranoid or if it’s paranoid – whether it’s paranoid or not depends on whether they are actually out to get you. But like, paranoid about – concerned, maybe preoccupied, with ominous, big picture stuff, which is what Pluto does; it’s like, big slow-moving things that are somewhat ominous and inexorable. And so Mercury gets occupied with looking at just how far Pluto’s come and the implications of that. 

CB: Yeah. We’ve seen a lot over the past several years of doing the forecasts of Mercury-Pluto hard aspects sometimes coinciding with reporters doing investigative reports and looking into dark underworldly things that are happening behind the scenes and then doing some sort of expose of that where Mercury is like, bringing to light something that someone or some group of people wanted to keep hidden or secret, but only as a result of persistent investigative or reportive type research like a Sherlock Holmes type situation. Or you got me to – after one Mercury-Pluto aspect, you got me to watch that one series… 

AC: True Detective. 

CB: True Detective, which was a good Mercury-Pluto themed show. 

AC: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there’s absolutely that – like, seeking the hidden truth. Mercury-Pluto squares, conjunctions, and oppositions are very disclosure themed. Like, oh my god, look at what’s been happening the whole time. 

CB: Yeah. Absolutely. So on a personal level, sometimes they can be kind of obsessive, though, and for some people, if it’s hitting a hard aspect in your chart of something like a conjunction, square, or opposition in fixed signs, there might be a thought or something that you’re just really focused on that day that you keep obsessing about and you have a hard time turning your attention away from. And that’ll be a little bit more intense this time, just because it’s not just a passing Mercury aspect that’ll be the most intense that day, but just because there’s also the station. So our attention is being drawn towards something, but it’s being drawn in a way that’s causing us to think very deeply about it and to focus on it very intensely. 

AC: Yeah. 

CB: In passing, you know, we had talked in the past few months about Zelensky’s Sun being at five degrees of Aquarius in the 9th house, and Leisa had actually highlighted that as a really important aspect and just the fact that that’s stationing there – I’m gonna be paying attention to an important development taking place either with Zelensky or with Russia at this time just because having Pluto station right on your Sun is a pretty intense transit, but having it in the 9th — 

AC: For sure. 

CB: — house where it’s like, the leader of a country is locked in a war with another country, it seems like an important turning point there. 

AC: Yeah. Absolutely. 

CB: All right. So Mercury-Pluto. It may also be important in terms of like, the US and the country because some of the things about the Pluto return for the United States when the government was set up when Pluto was in Aquarius seem like they’re becoming really important right now. I already mentioned some of those, like the Voting Rights Act; some of the other things are happening right now. Probably a turning point with that as well and some of the ongoing process of structural decay at this point and dismantling reaching a turning point in early May I’ll be paying attention to also.

AC: Yeah. That’s a great point. 

CB: All right. So after that, after that tense thing, you know, it’s still gonna be some days before those aspects move away as we move through the last of the first week of April. Mars doesn’t get outside of the three-degree range of Jupiter until like, the 8th or the 9th, for example, or the 10th. So we’re still coming out of some of those aspects for quite a while, and the repercussions or the echoes or what’s the word for like, the shockwaves of some of that are still hitting during the rest of that first 10 days of May. 

AC: Yeah, especially because there’s nothing else dramatic that distracts from that for better or worse, for good or for evil. Yeah, like, the ripples of that first week are free to continue well into the second week. Mercury once passing that square with Pluto, you know, it starts to disappear from the morning sky, becoming invisible, and will be headed towards the Sun for the next couple weeks and invisible for a little bit more than that. But you know, that’s a like – and I’m gonna – what? 

CB: And Jupiter. 

AC: Yeah — 

CB: Sun and Mercury to Jupiter. 

AC: Right. Yeah. It’ll get there. But that’s not the first – it’s gonna – yeah. Anyway. Point being it’ll take a little bit, and so the intensity of the first week doesn’t just end at the end of the first week. We need Mercury to, as you just pointed out, make that aspect to Jupiter – was it on the 12th? 13th? 

CB: Yeah, there’s these two positive – two of our more positive – aspects this month is the Sun sextiles Jupiter on the 10th, and then Mercury sextiles Jupiter on the 12th. And those do kind of break… It’s nice, because we get these two positive aspects coming in right as Mars has moved outside of the three-degree range with Jupiter so that there’s a lightly positive, affirming optimistic sort of hope-oriented couple of aspects, even though it’s weak and ultimately not gonna be a huge thing to write home about in terms of completely fixing all of the chaos that just broke out with Mars square Jupiter. There’s at least this light couple of days where there’s some hopeful affirming aspects. 

AC: Yeah. There’s like, some nice things that happen or some ways to mitigate some of the difficulties, especially on a personal level, right? Like a Sun-Jupiter sextile is not going to rearrange geopolitical affairs, but the Sun and then Mercury’s back-to-back sextiles with Jupiter will be opportunities to kind of keep things together and strengthen them or put them back together after what may have been a first week of April with plenty of wear and tear, almost first two weeks with plenty of wear and tear.

CB: Yeah, definitely. So after that point in terms of like, major aspects, we see Venus starts heading into that sextile with Mars as well, and Mercury and the Sun – I guess we have a cazimi and a reset of that cycle in Taurus around the 13th and 14th. And then the Sun and Mercury start very quickly heading for the exit and heading for Gemini and heading for Mercury’s home sign. 

AC: Yep. Yeah, we finally get Mercury and the Sun together in the third decan of Taurus, and then shortly thereafter we get a New Moon in Taurus. 

CB: Oh there it is. Yeah. 

AC: And — 

CB: New Moon at 25 Taurus, looks like. 25, 26. 

AC: Yeah, it’s a little closer to Caput Algol than I would like it to be, you know, which is a fixed star with a deservedly fearsome reputation. 

CB: Caput – I’ll just call it the fixed star Al. It like, familiarizes it.

AC: Oh, but there are so many Als, though. 

CB: That is true. Okay! So New Moon in Taurus, so that’s the other side of our – you know, there’s the definite like, closing down of one cycle that we’ve been in for the past month with this New Moon and the opening of a new one, because this is also like, right before Mars changes signs and completes its trip through Aries and moves into Taurus, and it’s right before Mercury and the Sun move into Gemini — 

AC: And Venus. 

CB: — and Venus leaves Gemini, moves into – so this is a huge turning point then at this point in the month, this New Moon on May 16th which just happens to fall right in the month that evenly divides us between the first half of the month where we’re still dealing with all that Aries stuff and we’re having the Full Moon and we’re having Pluto station and Mercury square it. And then this is the turning point where we close that chapter and we open up a fresh one, and there’s a huge vibe shift that takes place because all of the planets change signs. 

AC: Yeah, we basically get like, a planet changing signs every day for the next four days. We get New Moon, and then a planet changes, and then the next day a planet changes, the next day a planet changes, and then the next day a planet changes. So it’s very transitional, that like, 16th through the 20th. 

CB: Yeah. Very transitional. I like the transition in terms of like, one part of the transition is Venus sextiles Mars, which is just like, a lightly positive balancing aspect between those two energies that are so polar opposite. But sometimes in the past we’ve seen hard Mars-Venus aspects have things about like, conflicts between the genders – like, gender wars – sometimes even like, bad stories coming up in the news about inappropriate sexual things. But this is a sextile, so it’s the more lightly positive, constructive version of that, which is why in the overview I described it as like, a lightly sensual aspect. 

AC: Yeah. It can definitely do that, and yeah, it helps – the planet of conflict and the planet of harmony between people, like, have a constructive relationship, right? Because in any sufficiently good relationship has figured out how to mediate the need for conflict and the need for harmony, right? And so like, it’s a nice point. It’s a nice point between the two. 

CB: Yeah. How to find a balance between give and take. 

AC: Yeah, give and take, and passion and quietude. You know, sometimes it’s nice to just relax with somebody, and sometimes a little friction is necessary so nobody gets bored. But and when those two things are in accord, people are happy. And when they are not, right, especially when conflict is unmitigated by peace, then, you know, you have war on a variety of levels. So, yeah, it’s a nice moment; it’s not hugely powerful, but I’ll take it. 

CB: Yeah. I just like it because I noticed also that the Moon conjoins Venus in Cancer like, right as that’s happening. It hits Venus at like, 29, maybe 0 Cancer, and then Venus immediately sextiles Mars. So there’s just some cool, some nice little lovely aspects going on there, a little give and take, a little balance between the principle of like, selfishness versus the principle of sharing with another and having a nice little day there, I think. 

AC: Yeah, for sure. Well, and at that point, Venus is still early enough in Cancer that it’s coming into a square with Neptune rather than the harshness of the square with Saturn. And a little square with Neptune might be a little delusional, but it’s not as blatantly unpleasant or unfortunate as the square with Saturn which Venus will have to cross before getting to that lovely conjunction with Jupiter in June. 

CB: Yeah. That’s a really good point. So like, the lightly favorable, sensual aspect of Venus sextile Mars is sort of coinciding with one of those otherwise usually somewhat lovely, romantic aspects between Venus and Neptune that is usually in this instance, it’s a square, so it’s a bit divorced from reality and it’s a bit overly idealistic or romantic about what the actual situation is but what otherwise is kind of at the time can be a lovely, if somewhat misleading, aspect. 

AC: Yeah. You know, with Neptune-Venus aspects, especially the 180 and the 90 and the conjunction, it just makes you – you just need to think about what is the value of escapism, right? Like, one’s lifestyle cannot be escapism, but a little bit of an escape here and there is a beautiful thing that actually helps you go back to and shoulder your burdens somewhat refreshed. You just can’t mistake a lovely escape from the plotline of life itself. 

CB: Yeah, sometimes it makes life worth living and each of us tell ourselves stories that are stories that sometimes help give meaning and purpose and also a sense of magic or romance to things, and sometimes that serves a really important function that can be really good. And it reminds me that, you know, Venus going into Cancer is also the beginning of its copresence with Jupiter, so there is something grounded and positive and hopeful and optimistic that’s building up there even if Venus has to get through the somewhat unrealistic square with Neptune as well as a somewhat cold and distant square with Saturn first before it can truly make that conjunction or complete that conjunction with Jupiter. 

AC: Yeah. But – right? But that’s what it’s moving towards is an unambiguously positive configuration which is only a couple weeks away from that ingress. 

CB: Yeah, literally our best configuration of the year is coming up in June with that Venus-Jupiter conjunction in Cancer. And Venus just has to clear Neptune and clear Saturn especially. It’s weird; at the very end of the month, that’s our last sort of harsh aspect right after the Mars-Pluto square is Venus needing to get through the square with Saturn first, which with Saturn in the superior position, it’s like, Venus is coming off of this lovey, sort of sextile with Mars, and the square with Neptune that’s all magical, but then there’s like, some cold water that kind of gets dumped on Venus’s head for a day here around May 28th that probably won’t feel super good, or at the very least where the reality of the situation might become more apparent and some restrictions or things that are not ideal set in. But it’s a passing aspect. 

AC: Yeah. It is passing. And yeah, sometimes Saturn especially in this position in a superior square definitely restricts the joy that Venus might otherwise feel, and maybe that’s by emphasizing the limitations of a relationship or the drawbacks. Like, just dwelling upon the negative. But it can also be – you know, I’m so ready to go play outside, but I have so much work to do. 

CB: Right. 

AC: Into the desk. And then, you know, once I clear that square to Saturn, then I can go play with Jupiter. 

CB: Right. 

AC: Saturn just brings – sometimes the restriction isn’t within the relationship itself; it’s just within life, but it restricts the fun time you might otherwise be having. 

CB: Or it’s like, the marriage is about to take place, but you have to do some of the paperwork ahead of time and figure out the details before the agreement can be fully made or entered into. 

AC: Yeah. You gotta go through the anxiety-producing couple weeks leading up to it. 

CB: Right. Nice. Okay. I like that. So let’s back up a little bit, though, because really quickly we did have Mercury going into Gemini and then the Sun going into Gemini. Both the days have the potential for some curveballs and some unexpected disruptions, but also potentially some excitement and again some speed, some sudden forward movement that comes out of nowhere, especially May 17th when Mercury conjoins Uranus at one degree of Gemini, making its very first conjunction in that sign for the next seven years. And then a few days later, the Sun goes in and conjoins Uranus on the 22nd, beginning a new synodic cycle with Uranus in that sign and planting some seeds that will not just grow over the next year but probably over the next seven years as well. 

AC: Yeah. Right? Like, as you mentioned earlier, it’s gonna be the very first time that Mercury has conjoined Uranus in Gemini, and the very first time that the Sun has conjoined Uranus in Gemini. And so there should be, again, although there may be curveballs or surprises, not all of them pleasant, there’s a freshness to it, right? Like, Mercury’s getting some new ideas. Like, the Sun is seeing a very innovative, revolutionary, perhaps unsafe Uranus having their first meeting about what they’re gonna do over this whole next year. And so I think for a lot of people, there will be an experience of thinking about finding themselves thinking about things in a new way, or thinking about a situation or thinking about the world. And yeah, there’s a freshness that I’m looking forward to here. There’s a lot of things have grown quite stale, and a lot of ideas have demonstrated to be bad ones, but have not been replaced with better thinking. You know, it’s one thing to recognize an idea is not great; but when no other ideas have presented themselves, when it’s just a variety of stale, perhaps even decomposing, ideas to choose from, it’s really not that much of a choice. And so I’m looking forward to Uranus in Gemini and these conjunctions with it introducing some new things. Maybe ways to get from here to there that we haven’t thought of. Ways to think about things that we haven’t thought, at least not in a long time. 

CB: Yeah. And because it’s happening in Gemini and it’s Uranus in Gemini now, it has this light, chatty energy to me. It reminds me of an analogy of like, meeting up with a friend at a coffee shop and drinking a strong cup of coffee and then the two of you just get chatting together and talk for the entire afternoon. Both of those days really remind me of that kind of vibe and just the entirety of Mercury and the Sun moving into Gemini with Uranus feel like a much lighter, chatty energy during this part of the second half of May – the later part of May and the early part of June. 

AC: Yeah. And stimulating would be another word — 

CB: Stimulating. 

AC: — I’d add to that. 

CB: That’s it, that’s good. That’s the keyword. Stimulating. 

I mean, actually, that’s funny, because I think NORWAC will be happening around that time, right? So there will be actually — 

AC: Oh, absolutely. 

CB: — astrologers getting together and talking and having fun and — 

AC: Literally drinking coffee. 

CB: Right. Okay. Brilliant. So and that’s the Northwest Astrology Conference – side plug for that – happening in May in Seattle. 

AC: I’ll be there doing a pre-conference workshop, giving a talk. 

CB: Nice. Everyone should check that out. 

AC: My Gemini Moon will clearly be stimmed up. 

CB: Yeah. Everyone can buy Austin a cup of coffee so he spazzes out during his workshop. 

All right, so the other vibe shift, though, we need to talk about is one you mentioned, which is what happens when Mars leaves from Aries but also goes into Taurus and how that’s gonna be a huge vibe shift in a number of different ways, not just because it then begins the build-up to the square with Pluto, which is one part of that as a looming thing that starts increasing at that point, but also just because it goes into Taurus and it moves into – I mean, interestingly for the first time the first Mars in Taurus transit we’ve had in like, seven or eight years without Uranus there, which is gonna be a different vibe. But you know, sometimes one of the people actually I think about with that transit is – that always ends up being a super important transit for Trump any time Mars goes into Taurus, because it goes into his 10th whole sign house. And in the past decade, sometimes some of the instances where he gets the greatest pushback have coincided with that transit. Like the day of January 6th, Mars went from Aries into Taurus literally that evening as it was all unfolding. And you know, 2024, the summer of 2024 and the presidential election, a bunch of stuff happened when Mars went through Taurus. So we’ll be looking at a pivotal point for him as well around this time. 

AC: Yeah, during the six weeks or so that Mars is in Taurus? Or — 

CB: Yeah — 

AC: — are you saying — 

CB: — during —

AC: — the pivotal, or are you saying a pivotal point on the ingress? 

CB: During the entirety of that transit, because usually it’s like, a bunch of dust starts getting kicked up usually at the beginning of that transit as soon as it ingresses for him, but it usually culminates around the time that it hits his Midheaven later in the sign around 23, 24. Like, for example, in early 2021, it’s like, January 6th happens on the ingress. But then when Mars hit his Midheaven, I think he was impeached the second time, and he started getting kicked off of the social networks and things like that, so that there was a real beginning and then culmination thing. But I guess I’m just saying I’ll be paying attention to his transit in his chart, just because Mars 10th house transits tend to be very important for him. 

AC: Yeah, and it’ll be really interesting to see what Mars in Taurus does when Uranus is not there, because Mars-Uranus copresence and conjunctions are always electric no matter what sign they’re in, whereas normally, like, Taurus is not a high-octane sign for Mars. It’s usually with Uranus not there, Mars’s movement from Aries to Taurus is usually a stepping down of the intensity of conflict and the desire for a conflict. Ongoing conflicts tend to take on like, a slower, more measured, perhaps grindy or stagnant pace. But yeah, we’ll see. That has not been the case when Uranus was there in Taurus, but now Uranus is no longer there, so we kind of are gonna get to know Mars in Taurus again. 

Nonetheless — 

CB: Yeah. 

AC: — it is a blessing that Mars’s movement into Taurus not only takes it out of a very high-octane place for Mars, being Aries, but it also takes it out of the same sign as Saturn, as Mars-Saturn copresences and conjunctions are always brutal, though in a variety of ways.

CB: Yeah. So it removes some of the restrictions and the things that were holding Mars back that were interesting during its move through its home sign, which was also kind of interesting because there was reception there. And I discovered recently that that was the only Mars-Saturn conjunction we’re actually gonna have in Aries; the next one happens in Taurus in a couple years, which is pretty wild. 

AC: Yeah. It happens like, right after Saturn’s ingress, right? So it’s gonna look like Mars is going to hit Saturn in Aries, but then Saturn’s gonna sneak off into Taurus. 

CB: Yeah. So it’s like, normally we would be moving from a more fast-paced Mars in Aries to a more slow and plodding Mars in Taurus, but the fact that Mars is coming off of the conjunction with Saturn, I don’t know how that math ends up working out if we also feel like there’s some release from restrictions at that time. 

AC: It’s a good question. Right? Because Saturn – like, we’ve seen Saturn be restrictive during the conjunction where there was a brutal and destructive deadlock during the exact conjunction. We’ll see how free Mars feels during the second half of its time in Aries, right, which — 

CB: Yeah. The square with Jupiter. 

AC: — we’ve got weeks of – yeah, we’ve got the square to Jupiter. But yeah, usually on its own, Mars in Taurus is slower, more measured, less excited about starting fights. And it’s worth noting that whatever Mars in Taurus is, it’s what precedes Mars’s conjunction with Uranus when it enters Gemini at the very end of June and then conjoins Uranus at the beginning of July, so. 

CB: Right. Well, that’s what I was wondering about his chart is just like, what the hell is it going through the 10th, culminating hitting the Midheaven and peaking at that time, but then hitting Uranus in late June and early July, which is one of the most problematic aspects that we’ve been looking forward to this year when Mars conjoins Uranus in Gemini for the first time on the 4th of July. 

AC: Yeah. I think we’ll probably get some version of the slower Mars during this Mars in Taurus, because in Taurus, Mars is in Venus’s territory. And Venus, of course, does the square to Saturn which, though not pleasant for Venus, means that Mars’s ruler is also impeded by Saturn – more slowness. And then Venus moves into that conjunction with Jupiter, which you can have kind of a sleepy warrior, but if they are being directed by like, the most benefic peaceful pair in the sky is probably not going to be doing crazy violence. We’ll see. All bets are — 

CB: Right. 

AC: — off during this period of history. But my guess is that relative to what we get in July and what we had in April and the first half of May that we’re gonna get a slower Mars.

CB: Yeah. Well, and having — 

AC: Could be wrong. Just thinking about it. 

CB: Having Uranus depart from there certainly brings the speed of Taurus down a bit, compared to what it has been. I’ve already seen a bunch of the people with like, Taurus prominent in their chart – like the Taurus risings are already just like, immediately have vibe shifted out of a major chapter that they’ve been in for the past seven or eight years since 2018, 2019, and are already clearly moving into a huge new chapter of their life where things are gonna become less up in the air and less — 

AC: Yeah. 

CB: — erratic and less — 

AC: Less volatile. 

CB: Less volatile, less revolutionary, less trying to change things suddenly and rearrange major parts of their life. That’s been fascinating to see just in the past week that shift with Taurus people. And you know, maybe part of the vibe here is like, “Make Taurus slow again.” 

AC: Yeah. 

CB: You know, Taurus is supposed to be those tangible things, and we’ve seen over the past seven to eight years Uranus going through there, and all of a sudden like, Taurus getting digitalized with like, Bitcoin and digital currencies suddenly becoming popularized. And now finally we get it moving out of there and maybe Taurus will go back to being like, earthy and slow again. 

AC: Yeah, make Taurus boring again. 

CB: Right. Or reliable. I’ll give — 

AC: Yeah. 

CB: — more reliable. Make our Taurus people more reliable again. But this month, at least, though we’ve got some Mars stuff going on, so there are martian qualities that will be happening with Taurus. We have to talk about this square, because this is our second most tense aspect of the month that goes exact around the 25th of May when Mars hits five degrees of Taurus and squares Pluto. And I know we’ve mentioned this already, but I wanna make sure we give it ample time that this is our second tricky aspect of the month. And what’s weird is that it’s like, reactivating that five degree of fixed signs point after a little bit of a lull this month, after it was initially activated in the first week of May. So I feel like for some people, it’s gonna be like, some major ground-shaking things happen at the beginning of the month, but then for some reason it comes back and gets reactivated and comes back into your life in a significant way during the very last week of the month. 

AC: Yeah. There’s a lot of resemblance between that Mercury square Pluto at the beginning and the Mars square Pluto at the end.

CB: Yeah. I mean, the Mars square Pluto is more forceful, more decisive, more action-oriented. And the problem with Mars-Pluto aspects is they tend to take action, but they tend to go too far. At the core level, it’s like, Mars is the decisive, action-taking planet, but Pluto is the planet that takes small things and makes them big and blows them out of proportion and takes them to their utmost extreme. And in some instances, we’ve seen keywords with that over the past several years of like, Mars being the violence principle, but when Pluto is thrown in on top of Mars, it becomes the like, annihilation principle of just like, completely wiping something out, and that sort of energy being somewhat prominent at this time around May 25th and the days surrounding it.

AC: Yeah. Yeah, there is that sort of… Yeah, that ominous threat of annihilation energy that’s generated by Mars in Pluto during this time. There are some like, brakes on it – like with the configuration of the benefics and this and that, but like it’s definitely, like, it’s ominous. 

CB: Yeah. 

AC: Another thing that we’ve seen, right, is that with Mars-Pluto, you get non-state actor violence; you get things that fall into the terror category rather than just like, another battle in another war. You get like, surprise violence where there’s not supposed to be violence. And so, you know, which has that again, that ominous quality that Mars-Pluto generate. Like, you know, death can come for you anywhere; it’s not just on the battlefield. 

CB: Yeah. And that like, shocking sort of extreme levels of violence — 

AC: Yeah. 

CB: — is something we’ve seen before. Positive side, let’s say some positive Mars-Pluto things. There can be this intense sustained drive, and that can double up – especially here because it’s happening in two fixed signs, so that if there’s something that you have to do or especially people that are put in let’s say either a life or death situation or a situation where you have to do something, and it’s make or break and could save somebody else, let’s say, for example, and you dig down deep in yourself and you find the hidden power that you didn’t know that you had to persevere and to expend a great deal of energy over an extended period of time to do something extraordinary under difficult circumstances can sometimes be that energy as well. 

AC: Yeah. It’s that energy that’s only available in survival situations, whether it’s your survival or the survival of someone or something really important to you. And like you said, dig deep, right? That’s Pluto. Right? Like, dig into reserves that are usually off-limits for a reason, but are necessary in those circumstances. 

CB: Yeah. For sure. In mundane, I’ll be interested to see if there’s any major like, funerals, just because I was so struck — 

AC: Yeah. 

CB: — a year ago by the pope’s funeral happening like, exactly on that Mars-Pluto opposition, which was more significant at the time because Mars was coming off the retrograde. But yeah, just having the realization a year ago that it was like, Pluto is one of the ancient rulers of the underworld, and Mars in Mesopotamia was one of the ancient rulers of the underworld, and their coming together was this really literal example of a huge funeral with all the world leaders coming in to see the pope. Yeah, I’ll see if that keyword happens to arise again for some reason in this instance. 

AC: Yeah, we’ll see to whom and to what death pays a visit. 

CB: Yeah. All right, well, that’s a sufficiently ominous statement that I can’t improve on it, so I’m gonna leave it there and say once Mars breaks that square and once Venus breaks the square with Saturn on the 28th, by the 28th, Mars is already at seven. It looks like it gets to eight by the 29th. From like, the 29th, 30th, 31st, we’re heading into a much better part of the month and a much better part of the year. And I don’t wanna oversell it, because obviously we’re living in very crazy, chaotic times where some big stuff is happening in world events. But our best aspect of the year starts to form at this point in the last two to three days of May, and I think the vibe of that will be palpable, especially when we hit this Full Moon, because we actually weirdly have three lunations this month, and we have a Full Moon in the sign of Sagittarius that happens on the final day or two of the month, which is ruled by Jupiter. And I think that’s just emphasizing then the Jupiter and the Venus-Jupiter conjunction that’s forming at that time.

AC: Yeah. Things are moving into as good as they’re gonna look this year. Right? And so don’t wait for the Rapture to appreciate what’s going on. Like, it’s not that all difficulties evaporate; it’s not that the geopolitical order is rearranged into something stable, harmonious, and just. It’s just that it’s a nice break relative to the rest of the period of time that we’re actually in. 

and one thing – and you make a good point about the Jupiter-ruled nature of the Moon in Sagittarius. Another thing that I noted about that lunation that’s pretty significant is that we have both the Sun and the Moon are tightly conjunct royal stars, very bright, very powerful, very storied stars. The Moon is tightly conjunct Antares, which is the heart of the Scorpion, and then at the same time, the Sun is tightly conjunct Aldebaran, which is the red eye of the bull. And those are big, bright, powerful stars. And so you’ll actually be able to see the Moon with the bright red star of Antares during the night of the Full Moon. They’ll look up and just be like, oh, there’s the Moon; there’s a super bright red star. 

CB: Nice. Yeah, that’ll be brilliant, because the Moon is gonna be like, the only thing visible, it looks like, in the sky at that time planet-wise, or celestial body-wise, besides that fixed star that it’ll be right next to. 

AC: Yeah. And so you know, the fixed stars – the royal stars are not inherently positive so much as they are fundamentally powerful. Like, they’re big and bright. And so very often conjunctions with them mean things that are important happen, and you see in the charts of people that are important in their respective fields, you see those conjunctions with the royal stars. And so, you know, the Sun and Moon spread out across two just sort of – it speaks to some sort of importance of the events that happen at this time and for the next few weeks. 

CB: Yeah. Really important things, and it’ll be a great time to take advantage of soon, yeah, that Venus-Jupiter conjunction and the auspiciousness surrounding it to do some important things, to initiate some important things in terms of electional astrology. Speaking of, I completely forgot to mention the electional chart this month. I should do that. 

So actually I’ll back up and do that. To start things but also to see especially coming off the Mars-Saturn conjunction where I noticed that people were having some challenges in the Aries sector of their chart and whatever house that coincided with to be moving into a period where there’s some truly positive, uplifting, hopeful growth-oriented or expansive things happening in the Cancer sector of each of our charts. It’ll be nice to be ending the month on that note. 

AC: Yeah. Yeah, actually looking forward to the next month for the first time in a while. 

CB: Yeah. You’re gonna take some time to write, I hear, right? 

AC: Yeah. I’m in the midst of a desperate ordeal to finally finish the second edition of 36 Faces, which I’ve been in for months. And making progress. But yeah, I’m gonna bow out of the actually positive description of June, because as much as I love doing the podcast, it’s a lot of work, and I need to save as much of my brain as possible to get this book that I already wrote 12 years ago out. 

CB: Right! Yeah. Well, that’s gonna be a great time for doing that with Venus-Jupiter taking place in your 10th house. 

AC: And nice — 

CB: Sorry, 1st house. 

AC: — Mercury in Gemini. 

CB: Nice Mercury in Gemini. Lots of good things. You’ll have a little interruption needing to do NORWAC and do some conference stuff, but otherwise, I can say that the alignments look very auspicious for you finishing stuff this time. 

AC: Yeah, I think so. And it’ll help make up for April. 

CB: Absolutely. Okay, I need to mention before we wrap up the electional chart for the month.

All right, so our auspicious electional chart for the month that Leisa Schaim and I found in our private electional astrology podcast that’s available for patrons through our page on Patreon, we found a ton of charts this month because there are some really good configurations, so we actually gave people like, almost 20 charts this month. But the single best chart that I wanted to highlight and give to the public for elections this month takes place in that little interim period in between the hard Mars aspects after the first one and before the second one fully kicks in. And the election for this month is on May 20th, 2026, at about 6:10 AM in the morning where you want to set the chart for your location and then adjust the Ascendant until the Ascendant degree is at about six degrees of Gemini. And if you do that, you’ll end up with a chart that looks roughly like this where we have a chart with Gemini rising, and Mercury is exactly conjunct the degree of the Ascendant in Gemini in the first house. And we also have the Moon in Cancer forming a conjunction with Jupiter at 21 degrees of Cancer in the 2nd house in a day chart, so that Jupiter is fully benefic. 

So I really like this chart and I wanted to highlight it this month, because one, it’s a great Mercury election with Mercury in its domicile conjunct the degree of the Ascendant, and also fully taking advantage of Uranus having recently moved into Gemini so that it will be accelerating whatever Mercury’s trying to do when it comes to having good things going for communication or movement or ideas and innovation and technology and different things like that that are related to Mercury are getting accentuated in such a positive way in this chart by the presence of Uranus. 

It’s also rare, because it’s a really good financial chart at the same time by having that auspicious Moon-Jupiter conjunction in Cancer in the 2nd whole sign house. So it’s one of those rare charts where it’s not just good for communications and technology and other first house things, but it also happens to be a pretty good chart for financial things as well at the same time. 

The part of the chart that’s not as good where you have drawbacks, because you always have drawbacks in every chart, is that Mars is in the 12th house, which has to do with enemies, sometimes self-undoing and people that you don’t get along with and having some difficulties there. But otherwise, it’s just an excellent chart for Mercury election as well as financial matters, and that’s the chart that I wanted to highlight this month. But if you need other charts for other dates to do things during the course of the month, we have I think 18 other charts in the episode of the electional astrology podcast that we just released through our page on Patreon, which you can get access to at Patreon.com/AstrologyPodcast. 

What do you think of our Mercury election for the month, Austin? 

AC: Oh, I love it. Another thing I would add is that it’s mutable rising, so Mercury rules the first and the 4th, right, so two angular houses, and then that beautiful Jupiter which the Moon is conjoining is responsible for the 7th and the 10th. And so that’s all four of the angular houses, the angular houses outweighing all the other houses in terms of raw power and impact. And so having all four angles ruled by happy, well-situated planets is a first foundation for almost anything.

CB: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I might use this; I got a book idea this past week, the idea for a book I wanna write, and I think I might use an election like this to start that, because I think Mercury elections can be really good for writing projects. I think I used a similar Mercury election for starting to write my Hellenistic astrology book, for example. 

AC: Very nice. Yeah. I so wish that I was in the position to start another project. 

CB: Yeah, or that you had used a chart like this for your writing project? 

AC: Yeah. I mean… I don’t wanna get into it. It’s — 

CB: All right. 

AC: — been years and years — 

CB: We will not — 

AC: — of rewriting and expanding and deciding what the scope of the rewrites would be, et cetera, et cetera. There was no opportunity for a clean beginning in the same way that you can begin a new project. 

CB: You know, what’s funny about that – in the intro to my book, I misspeak and I say I used a reasonably auspicious electional chart to start writing my book in like, 2008. But the data I give – it was actually a terrible electional chart! It was just the best chart I could find at the time. And the book process – I wrote it over years – was not working, and it was like, way too big in certain sections and like, short in others, and the tone was off because I wrote it over a 10-year period. 

AC: Right. 

CB: So I actually had to start over again, and I reelected a better chart that was actually a good electional chart that was more of a Gemini chart like this. And then I restarted the book from scratch, and over the course of the year wrote it over again just to adopt a consistent tone using my voice as it had developed after 10 years of writing. So that’s a funny little sidenote if anybody ever reads my book that the electional chart I mention is actually terrible and I ended up doing a different electional chart to actually finish writing the book. 

AC: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, and with big projects, sometimes it looks like that. Where it’s like, well, I’ve got four months where I can focus, and then, you know, then next year I’ve got another couple months where I can focus. And you know, each stint kind of needs its own election. 

CB: Yeah. Well, and sometimes it’s okay on some things to start over again. Like, in other instances, you know, you should persevere and just push through until you get it done. But in other instances, if you can start something over again, sometimes it can be worth it symbolically if you have an opportunity to. 

AC: Yeah. I’m not starting the book over again! 

CB: I was trying to talk you into it, but all right! 

AC: Yeah, just scrap it all on the —

CB: Yeah. 

AC: — on the 20th. 

CB: Right, exactly. 

AC: It’s gonna be another five years, folks! 

CB: People would be so mad at me; I would be getting — 

AC: Well, I wasn’t going to, but Chris had this really good election! 

CB: Yeah. All right, well, we’ll see what happens. Good luck with the writing this month. 

AC: Thank you. 

CB: I think that brings us to the end of the forecast episode. What are you doing? What do you have coming up aside from abandoning us from the next month for the next forecast episode while you’re writing? 

AC: Well, I’m abandoning you to the only portion of the only month that actually looks nice, so I think everybody will be okay without me! 

CB: That’s fair. 

AC: So I’m gonna be at NORWAC; I’m gonna do a workshop on the pairing of planets and nodes and all of the weird, wacky, wonderful, haunted, disturbing things that they do together. I will also be giving a lecture; I will be attending to my regular duties as a teacher in my Fundamentals of Astrology program. As always, you can find a vast trove of lectures and workshops and classes that I have given that are recorded and available for purchase and download on my website. 

For Sphere and Sundry, the fixed star Spica series that I elected and Kait consecrated and created came out last month; it’s really something quite special, but not as special as what’s coming out this month! So Sphere and Sundry’s got a project that’s – it’s funny that we’re talking about projects that take near a decade. There’s a project that’s been going for about seven years that’s finally about to come out this month on the 20th. Great minds think alike. And it’s dubbed the “Magna mundi” project. And so over the years, we’ve gotten all of the planets in the signs which they own in the Thema mundi. Like, all the planets in their domiciles. And then Kait has ritually unified and integrated all of these into one master series. So it’s 12 different projects that were all unified, one by one, into one corpus of talismanic materia. And it is full of joice would be the stupid abbreviated version of it, but it’s really exciting and powerful. We’ve started – we uncorked it and have been Guinea pigging for the last bit. And so that series, which is all of the planets in all of their domiciles all at the same time – you know, so complicated and laborious that it actually sort of circles back around to become it’s the zodiac, but with all of the powers as they were in the beginning. That comes out on the 20th. 

CB: Nice. I had no idea we were using the same election. Great minds. 

AC: Yeah, it’s the uber Thema mundi project. It is Magna mundi. 

CB: I love it. That’s brilliant. What are your websites? 

AC: So I’m AustinCoppock.com, and then you can find Spica and the Magna mundi project at SphereAndSundry.com. 

CB: All right. Well, everybody in the YouTube comments wish Austin good luck in his writing project; he needs all the good energy he can get, but I think he’s gonna pull it off this month. So I’m excited to see you on the other end of that when you come back and we do the forecast for, what, July? That’ll be a fun one for the Mars-Uranus conjunction. 

AC: Yeah, it’ll be – there’ll be a lot to talk about. 

CB: There’ll be some things. All right. Fun! 

As for myself, I’ve been – you know, the Mars-Neptune conjunction, sometimes this happens during Mars-Neptune conjunctions, but I was just tremendously energetically wrecked and drained this month. So I was doing more stuff lately to try to find ways to make episodes more approachable so I can keep doing stuff, and I was experimenting with doing shorter episodes as well as doing shorts, like some vertical shorts, and I released two short videos just to patrons through my page on Patreon, because I realized like, in periods in which I’m less energetically available or capable of doing things, that that’s the primary group that I still need to make sure I’m still releasing content to is the people that are like, paying subscribers that are actually supporting my work and this research. So I’m gonna keep doing that and trying to experiment with releasing short videos to patrons, maybe releasing more short videos of short-to-medium length on YouTube and experimenting with using this as an opportunity if I’m less energetically overflowing with the ability to do long stuff, if I could find that as a challenge to sharpen my ability to do shorter form content in different ways. So I’m gonna be experimenting with that this month, although I do have a great book interview lined up about a book that’s coming out about Linda Goodman that I’m super stoked about, and I’m gonna record that early in May, release it for early access to patrons right away, and then to the public once it’s done being edited. But otherwise, if people wanna follow my work and get access to the content that’s just being released to patrons, then you can sign up through my page on Patreon.com. 

And also I noticed there’s a lot of people that watch the podcast on YouTube when it comes up in their feed but are not subscribers of the podcast on YouTube. So if you watch the podcast regularly, then please do us a favor and hit the “subscribe” button, because it actually makes a tangible difference in terms of how many people YouTube algorithm recommends the videos to, and that’ll help us – it’s like, a small tangible thing each viewer can do in order to contribute something to the podcast. 

So I think that’s it. I think that’s it for this episode. So thanks, Austin, so much for joining me once again. Good luck this month during your “break,” during your writer’s break. I hope you have a good successful time. 

AC: Thank you. Yeah. I hope so too. 

CB: I think I feel very good about this; I think you’ll have great success, and I look forward to seeing the book once it’s done. But otherwise, I think that’s it for this episode. 

So thanks everyone for watching this episode of The Astrology Podcast, and we’ll see you again next time! 

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If you’re a fan of the podcast and you wanna get access to bonus content, then become a patron through my page on Patreon where you can get early access to new episodes, attend live recordings and webinars, access the monthly electional astrology podcast, The Secret Astrology Podcast that’s only available to patrons, or you can even get your name listed in the credits. Find out more at Patreon.com/AstrologyPodcast.

Special thanks to the patrons on our Producers tier, including patrons Kristi Moe, Ariana Amour, Mandi Rae, Angelic Nambo, Issa Sabah, Jeanne Marie Kaplan, Melissa DeLano, Sonny Bazbaz, Kwatsi Alibaruho, Annie Newman, Ginger Sadlier, Berlynn West, and Nicki Crawford.

If you’re looking for good dates to do things this year, then be sure to check out our 2026 Electional Astrology Report, which is a guide to the most fortunate dates in 2026. You can get it at TheAstrologyPodcast.com/2026Report. 

If you’re really looking to take your studies of astrology to the next level, then consider signing up for my Hellenistic Astrology course, which is an online course in ancient astrology where I take people from basic concepts up through intermediate and advanced techniques for reading birth charts. There’s over a hundred hours of video lectures, plus live webinars and Q&A sessions each month. And at the end of the course, you get a certificate of completion saying that you studied with me. Find out more information at TheAstrologySchool.com. 

If you’re looking to get an astrological consultation, then check out the new consultations page on the podcast website where I have a list of astrologers I recommend for birth chart readings and other types of consultations. You can find that at TheAstrologyPodcast.com/Consultations.

The astrology software we use and recommend here on the podcast is called Solar Fire for Windows, and you can get a 15% discount on it by using the promo code ‘AP15’ at the website Alabe.com. 

For Mac users, we recommend the program called Astro Gold for Mac OS, and you can use the promo code ‘ASTROPODCAST15’ to get a 15% discount at their website, which is AstroGold.io.

And shoutout to our sponsors for this episode, including the Northwest Astrology Conference, which is happening in Seattle and being livestreamed online May 21st through the 25th, 2026. Find out more information at NORWAC.net. As well as the United Astrology Conference, which is happening in Chicago this year September 3rd through the 9th, 2026. Find out more information about that at UACAstrology.com.